I was born in Mississippi and have lived all over the American South. For two decades, I practiced law in Jackson, Mississippi. When I turned to writing, I wrote short stories and essays, radio commentaries and magazine columns. Two of my short stories were nominated for a Pushcart Prize; one received a Special Mention. The stories in my award-winning audio collection have been downloaded over 50,000 times worldwide. I then added novel-writing to the mix. It’s been a slog. 

I was honored to be the Peter Taylor Fellow in Nonfiction at the Kenyon College Summer Writing Program; accepted into the Sewanee Summer Writing Conference on my short stories and the Community of Writers for my novel. I thank author Sue Silverman for including my essay “Tetanus, You Understand?” in Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir (University of Georgia Press, 2009) as an example of metaphor. My latest short story appears in EAP: The Magazine, Winter 2022 issue. 

My current project is the novel, IN THE NAME OF MISSISSIPPI, a semi-finalist (25/600) in the James Jones First Novel Competition and long-listed in the Craft First Chapters contest in 2021. 

I divide my time between New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

peace in creativity, Ellen