Writer Ellen Morris Prewitt Blog

My New Righting Group Book

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on October 30, 2019. Posted in General, HOMELESSNESS, Writing. Leave a Comment

Y’all, I’ve been so busy getting my new book into the hands of folks who can use it, I haven’t stopped long enough to tell you about it. Most of y’all know for 8 years I was part of a weekly writing group of Memphians who had personally experienced homelessness. We wrote; we held public readings; we hosted full-day...

The Mississippi that Might Still Be

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 28, 2020. Posted in General, RACISM. 2 Comments

When I heard that Mississippi during this massive moment of potential change was focusing on its racist flag, at first I thought, oh, dear Lord —that’s what Mississippians think matters now? But. I lose count when I try to say how many generations I’ve been from Mississippi (’cause, you know, we’re not very good at...

My Best Reader has Left Me

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 18, 2020. Posted in General, GRIEF, LOVE. 8 Comments

Mother at her 90th birthday party Marguerite Virginia Price Van Hecke died on May 29, 2020, following emergency surgery. Virginia was born on June 9, 1929, on the Road of Remembrance in Jackson, Mississippi, as the second child of Maggie Mae and James Murray Price, a little girl who was to have been named George William. From the start, she never...

When a White Woman Accuses a Black Man

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 5, 2020. Posted in General, GOD, HOMELESSNESS, RACISM. 6 Comments

He was a writer, a man I’ll call Jonathan. Jonathan was in writing group with me one hour before he was accused of having snatched a purse from a woman on the street, a felony even though the purse had less than $10 in it. I told the investigators that Jonathan had just left writing group when this crime supposedly occurred; there was no way...

Christians Leave Trump in Droves

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 3, 2020. Posted in General, GOD, RACISM. 15 Comments

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church condemned it. Trump “used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes. This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us,” Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said in a statement. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington...

That Which Soothes When All Begins to Crumble

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 26, 2020. Posted in General, GOD, GRIEF, Writing. 4 Comments

Though I welcomed—after our terror subsided—the stillness of our shelter-in-place life, we who had been circling and circling for years, the last few days I have felt as if I might crumble, my “dust to dust” having become friable, my feet of clay exposed, a descending that was not helped when the priest who understood me and yet encouraged...

Where We Are….

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 22, 2020. Posted in General, HOMELESSNESS, Writing. 12 Comments

Last summer, I got an agent for my mystery. Once reason I chose her was because she had good ideas on improving the manuscript. I made those revisions, which were not insubstantial, and in the fall the agent submitted to publishing houses. We didn’t get any bites. We confabbed in January, and she suggested I change the gender of the amateur...

Weird or You too?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 14, 2020. Posted in General. 3 Comments

New things have been happening to me during our coronavirus sheltering-in-place. Have they been happening to you too? Or is it just plain weird me? Rate each one: * JPW for just plain weird* Utoo for Universal I’ve been getting a steady stream of Friend requests on Facebook. (Yes, they’re real people, not fake accounts.) I’ve...

A Virus is Not Godzilla

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 12, 2020. Posted in General, GRIEF. 4 Comments

A virus is not Godzilla. Its takeover of the world is not inevitable. Nor is a virus an act of God or a hurricane or tornado or anything else we have to passively accept as bigger than ourselves. A virus can be stopped. How? Quit giving it hosts. You can quit giving a virus hosts in two ways. First, you can let the tipping point of your population...

Saturday Morning Bulbology

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 9, 2020. Posted in General. 6 Comments

Everything I know about bulbs I learned from my Uncle Hebron. He came to our river house in the red clay hills of Alabama, post knee-replacement. At the time, Hebie was about 75 years old. He brought a netted bag of daffodil bulbs. The house had a hill, and he painstakingly walked up and down that hill, covering it with daffodil bulbs. Watching...