About Elle

Elle Newton has over a decade of experience delivering high-caliber storytelling across digital platforms. With a background spanning journalism, the arts, and education, she brings a combination of editorial precision, creative vision, and operational discipline to her projects.

As founding Editor in Chief of Poets Reading the News (PRTN)—a digital publication blending poetry and journalism—she has built and scaled an international platform that has published over 1,000 original works from writers in 25+ countries, including Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists and U.S. poet laureates. She established the publication’s editorial systems, content standards, and long-term strategy, guiding its evolution into a respected venue for timely, thought-provoking commentary, including on politics, education, technology, climate, and global affairs, and centering the power of poetry in everyday life.

Through PRTN Elle also launched and leads a competitive editorial fellowship to train emerging editors in the craft and discipline of digital publishing, emphasizing attention to detail, narrative coherence, and intellectual integrity.

Elle’s writing and editorial projects have been featured on NPR, in the San Francisco Chronicle, KPFA, and East Bay Express. She served as Writer in Residence at Babelab, the Bay Area’s primary new media gallery, where she curated public programs and exhibitions on media, language, information systems and cultural analysis. She holds degrees from Mills College (magna cum laude) and studied near eastern history at UCLA, and is a recent graduate of J Leaders, a Silicon Valley-based leadership fellowship focused on systems thinking, brand messaging and leading with timeless values.