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...

My Heart is in Memphis

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 28, 2023. Posted in Featured, Racism to Reconciliation. 7 Comments

First, there is racism. I will keep reposting this until it is no longer true. Again. And again and again. Why do killings keep happening? Because, in America, first, there is racism. Tyre D. Nichols’ photography can be viewed here: T. Nichols Photography A photo of Tyre D. Nichols at his memorial service

White Privilege as Spiritual Discipline: When

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 22, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

When I wrote about examining white privilege as a spiritual discipline, I had no idea how unoriginal it was. Turns out, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Adventists, Unitarian Universalists, United Church of Christ, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists–all acknowledge examining white privilege as a spiritual discipline. Apparently,...

Our Different Realities

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 16, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments

On this Martin Luther King Day, I acknowledge a truth. The years of us white folks embedding racism in American society has warped our perception. We whites see different realities from Black folk, every day, day-by-day. If I’m inside the white community, I experience life in America differently than those who aren’t. How Different...

White Privilege as Spiritual Discipline

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 4, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 9 Comments

White people hate the term “white privilege.” Why? Because life is hard for all of us. “Privilege” implies ease, and our lives have not, in fact, been easy. Also, as Americans, we value rugged individualism. Only those who made their own way in the world count as successful. No silver spoons for us, thank you very much. You...

New Cowboy Boots: A Conversation

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 19, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. 8 Comments

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the need to buy a pair of new cowboy boots. Every Christmas when I was a little girl, we got a new pair of boots. In lucky years, we got the whole nine yards: turquoise jeans, snap shirt, belt, hat, and the boots. My beloved husband agreed to wedge this shopping trip into an already complicated, whirlwind trip...

Everett’s The Trees

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 12, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation, Writing. 4 Comments

Percival Everett’s The TREES is the most sarcastic, gut-punchingly funny novel about the Emmett Till lynching. As I type that sentence, I think, What the hell? In the apt words of one of the characters from The Trees, it is, “A sentence I never imagined myself saying.” Very on-brand that this book, which short-listed for the Booker...

The Grace of Leaves

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 7, 2022. Posted in General. 4 Comments

This afternoon, I swept the front porch. Air too soft for December swirled around my ankles. “The leaves keep falling!” called the across-the-street neighbor who I can’t figure out when he chooses to speak, or not. “Yes,” I responded. “We don’t have a tree on our property, but we’ve got leaves.” Too...

By Hands Now Known

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 6, 2022. Posted in Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments

I have been reading about my American South’s racial violence for over twenty years, and yet, “By Hands Now Known,” caused me to go get a rosary to hold while reading. The full name of the book is a clue to its unsettling nature: “By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners.” Margaret A. Burnham’s...

Stream of Life

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 3, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, GOD, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

The stream of life is out in the country. You can only get to it by driving dirt roads. Then you have to walk a beaten path through pin oaks, pines, and hickories that will roll an ankle if you’re not careful. Just when you’ve given up, the trees open and a sandy-bottomed creek sparkles in the sun. We enter the water, startled by its...

You’re Swimming Streamline

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 26, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. 2 Comments

The guests are gone, the washing begun. A wind arrived and blew slashing rain down the streets. The palms shook their heads like Peanuts characters dancing to Linus’s piano. Then the storm, too, passed. Water filled the potholes; for the sake of your suspension, beware the unseen. I, who made no food for Thanksgiving, baked cookies...