ELLEN MORRIS PREWITT, WRITER

Hi, y’all,

Thank you for taking a look at my work. Over my writing career, I’ve published short stories, essays, radio commentaries, novels, 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 a former Peter Taylor Fellow, runner-up in the William Faulkner Literary Competition, Pushcart Honorable Mention recipient, and current Writer-in-Residence at 100 Men Hall, an iconic Mississippi Blues site. My work has been in Gulf Coast, Image, Porchlight, Salvation South, Mississippi Free Press, Unleash Lit, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Fourth Genre, Luna Station Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Admissions Project, Brevity, EAP the Magazine, and elsewhere. I’m excited for Literary Wanderlust to release my first traditionally-published novel in 2026—When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women.

Weaving through all my work is the joy of creating in community. In addition to the writing group for folks experiencing homelessness, I co-founded the weekly 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 Mississippi Blues site, where we talk craft and write together each month. We’d love to have you join us at either or both.

I’m on a long journey of anti-racism and ancestral work. I currently serve on the Mississippi Episcopal Diocese Becoming Beloved Community Racial Reconciliation Task Force. I’m a former attorney who practiced law for 19 years in Jackson and an obsessive swimmer.

I split my time between Memphis, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and New Orleans, where I (and my husband and my dog) can frequently be found in costume.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.

peace in creativity, Ellen

Writing a New Orleans Story

Ellen Morris Prewitt

When people ask, “Where are you from?” I answer, “Mississippi.” After all, my pregnant mother traveled from Denver to Jackson to give birth to me ’cause she wanted me to be from Mississippi. I have now lived in New Orleans for 14 years; nine years part-time, six years as a resident. Even so, I will never feel comfortable writing a New Orleans story.

The hero in When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women is also dealing with being an outsider living in New Orleans. She ran away to the city from her home in Mississippi. Her resulting relationship with the city is an immense part of the story. How does one become part of a place as tightly woven as New Orleans? New Orleans cares where you went to high school and if you lived through Katrina. It wants to know which krewe you belong to and what neighborhood you claim. You can become part of the place, but Etoile’s attempts to fit in are as misguided as her entire approach to life, a lesson she must to learn before the story ends.

At the time I wrote WWWMTTW, I had been a part-time resident in the Bywater for six years. Still, I felt like I was transitioning from being a tourist to living in the city. It’s night and day, y’all. So I explored my own relationship with the city and my insecurities with claiming New Orleans. As with all things in the novel, as I gave that struggle to Etoile, I understood myself better.

If you are Southern, or read a lot of Southern literature, you won’t be surprised by my focus on place. You’ll recognize my need to wrestle with it, understand it, resolve it. I might not consider, When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women a traditional “New Orleans story” but perhaps it is.