ELLEN MORRIS PREWITT, WRITER

Hi, y’all,

Thank you for taking a look at my work. I have award-winning audio books, print books and ebooks. Over my career, I’ve written short stories, essays, radio commentaries, novels, personal memoir, magazine articles, and a “how to” writing guide based on my eight years leading a weekly writing group of men and women experiencing homelessness. I’m grateful for my work to have been in Gulf Coast, Image, Fourth Genre, Hotel Amerika, Luna Quarterly, Brevity, EAP, and other journals. My stories have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize; one received a Special Mention. You can read more about my publications, awards, fellowships, and writing credentials—plus my latest news—on the Achievements Page.

Weaving through all my work is the joy of creating in community. I recently co-founded the Contemplative Writing Group at the School for Contemplative Living, which you can check out at the School’s website. I’m also Writer-in-Residence at 100 Men Hall, a historic site on the Mississippi Blues Chitlin’ Circuit, where we offer monthly writing gatherings. We’d love to have you join us at either, or both.

I’m on a long journey of anti-racism and ancestral work. Y’all will hear more as I learn more. I currently serve on the Mississippi Episcopal Diocese Becoming Beloved Community team. I’m a former attorney who practiced law for 19 years in Jackson.

I split my time between Memphis, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and New Orleans, where I can frequently be found in costume or in the pool, swimming.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.

peace in creativity, Ellen

We Go On

Ellen Morris Prewitt

Daylight Savings Time is gone. Night comes on. Five o’clock, and dirty light streaks the sky with grey. It’s pretty. The clouds move quickly. Raphel is in the Gulf, and, though it is nowhere near me, the wind lifts.

I messed up. I had to postpone an event and I lost the email where I had invited people. My computer just ate it. I finally found it, but the notice went out so late. I will make more of these mistakes as I continue to age, hopefully. Y’all have helped me see I can live with that.

The election has saddened everyone in my orbit. They are afraid, shocked, angry, dazed. At least the people communicating with me are. The groups I belong to are sending out mass emails offering advice on how to deal with the loss. Let me add mine: we are alive. We will make it. We must continue to do what we can do for as long as we can do it.

In the morning, the chimes my husband hung beneath the house mix with the swell of the Gulf. I am content, and I feel guilty about that. Yet, I was working at 8:00 on a Friday night to get a truth-telling about slavery and the Episcopal Diocese right. It’s a head-down approach, even as I study the new growth on the live oak between me and the sea. The tree has grown so much since we bought the lot. The folks who maintain city wires take a big ol’ chomp out of it every so often, but it keeps reaching for the sky, spreading. Soon enough, the bite will be a small part of what it is.

Hopefully, next week I get my cast off. If this bone can heal in such a short time, I will proclaim it a miracle. I grieve the break and the time it has taken me out of the pool. I rejoice the healing. We go on.