Featured Archives - Ellen Morris Prewitt

Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 12, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Writing. 4 Comments on Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

The birth of the new is exciting. When that birthing happens in an arena you dearly love, it’s even more exciting. Such is the case with Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature. I built my writing career on literary journals. That was the way you did it when I was starting out. You submitted to journals and hoped you got lucky...

Love Song to Cities

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 11, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Writing. No Comments on Love Song to Cities

I was reading a book out in the world and an observer asked me what it was. The City We Became, I told her. Then she wanted to know what it was about. “Blah, blah, blah,” I said, ending with, “It’s about New York City.” I have now finished the second, and final, installment in the series by N. K. Jemisin, The World We Make. I...

I Should Be More Excited

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 9, 2025. Posted in Featured, When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women. 9 Comments on I Should Be More Excited

This week, I got the draft cover for When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women. The cover’s cool, particularly for a small press. Sometimes, to me, covers on small presses look like an image grab off Shutterstock. This cover is bespoke, tailored to New Orleans. It’s gonna be awesome. Still, I should be more excited than I am. I’ve seen the...

Read the Bad Reviews

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 17, 2025. Posted in Featured, Writing. 2 Comments on Read the Bad Reviews

I do this thing. When I finish a book I really liked, I go to Goodreads and Amazon, and I read the bad reviews. I want to remind myself that it’s all simply a matter of taste, and we have different tastes, and that’s okay. But today after I finished an exquisitely written novel, something went awry. I got put out. In particular, I...

Not My Street

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 9, 2025. Posted in Featured, Writing. 4 Comments on Not My Street

I walk out the door of 100 Men Hall and birds sing, as if they’ve been doing that all along. Not one bird, two birds—an orchestra of birds, thrumming beneath the afternoon. I follow the sound and find the masses congregated on a cell tower. I don’t know what kind of birds they are. My sister Marcee goes downtown in Raleigh in the evenings...

Reading Hibernation

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 5, 2025. Posted in Featured, Writing. No Comments on Reading Hibernation

Traditionally, the week between Christmas and New Years has been for me a time to hibernate and read. The last deep dive I did, my mother was still alive. She gave me a slew of books for Christmas, all by authors whose first language was Spanish (because I asked for them, y’all–Mother always gave you what you asked for.) I feel like...

Split the Baby

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 4, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Writing. No Comments on Split the Baby

It takes great courage to return to childhood. Not just the exposure we risk or the chance we will reveal more than we intend. To write memoir well, you must fully return to that time period, immersing yourself. You must make it real again. Not just the bad parts but, sometimes more heartbreakingly, the good parts as well. Lauren Rhoades...

Peaceful Americans

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on October 19, 2025. Posted in Featured, General. 2 Comments on Peaceful Americans

After Trump was elected in 2016, I waited for him to pivot from being a candidate to being president. I didn’t like him, but he was now my president. Instead, Trump kept holding campaign rallies. And calling those who didn’t vote for him “them.” I realized he didn’t want to be the president of America. He wanted to...

Summer Adventures

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 11, 2025. Posted in Featured, General. 2 Comments on Summer Adventures

Over the last month of summer adventures, I’ve survived a fruit fly outbreak and a weevil infestation, both while caring for our five-year-old grandson for the week. I swam in a lake where duck poop covered the dock and my arms stroked into wavering water lilies. An acquaintance died from that horrid flesh-eating bacteria, and I got bit...

Night Terrors

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 1, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Writing. 13 Comments on Night Terrors

Write, write. Submit, submit. This is me, a busy little bee. One paid off, a story about the magic of night terrors. Or, alternatively, the demons in my prior life. I thank Dorothy Parker’s Ashes for publishing it. Y’all take a look and let me know what you think.