Estes is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Enchantée (2013), winner of the 2015 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and Tryst (2009), a finalist for the 2010Pulitzer Prize. Her other books include Chez Nous (2005); Voice-Over (2002), which won both the 2001 FIELD Poetry Prize and the 2001 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Prize from the Poetry Society of America; and The Uses of Passion (1995), which won the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize.  
 
The recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2005 Pushcart Prize, Estes has published poems in Boston Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and Slate; her critical work has appeared in several publications, including FIELD and Lyric Poetry Review. Her additional honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council.
 
Estes earned her MA and PhD in English from the University of Oregon. She has served as professor of American literature and creative writing at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and has taught creative writing at Oberlin College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Ohio State University. Estes is currently a faculty member of Ashland University’s low-residency MFA program.