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...

Anti-Lynching Today

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 16, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments

I cannot recommend this book on anti-lynching. In the original writings in The Light of Truth, Ida B. Wells aims to stop lynching by showing the facts. At the time, white America claimed lynching was a terrible but understandable reaction to Black men raping white women. It wasn’t. White Americans lynched Black Americans to enforce the...

A Saturday Morning

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 14, 2022. Posted in Featured, General. 4 Comments

Good Saturday morning. The bluebirds are nesting. They flit (there’s no other word) from the telephone wire to the bluebird house to the graceful limb of the live oak. My uncle rues their use of the Purple Martin house, but I’m glad someone is using it. Soon we could have babies. Or maybe we have them now. All I have to do is lower the...

The South and America

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 10, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. Leave a Comment

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation If anyone doubts the premise of Imani Perry’s book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, all they have to do is look to the lawsuit poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. As Mississippi was the author of strategies...

Reparations Action

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 28, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 8 Comments

This is the 7th installment in my reparations series where we’ll turn from background to action. Click to read the introduction. Continue with background facts about me and the salacious real me facts. I’ve included some warnings, plus the joy of reparative work. My last post I told you the “why” of choosing creative writing as...

A Shattered Reality

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 23, 2022. Posted in General. 17 Comments

I broke my elbow then I got COVID. “Shattered” is actually the verb the orthopedic surgeon used about what I did to my elbow. A shattered elbow and a shattered reality—it’s why I’ve been MIA for a while. The damage required surgery, a plate, and eight screws. When you add this to my two fake hips, I’m full of screws....

I Feel to Believe

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 22, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Writing. 4 Comments

When we took an apartment in New Orleans, I began reading the Times-Picayune newspaper. I would spy a column by Jarvis DeBerry and feel as if I’d found an Easter egg. Back then, we were in the city part-time. I didn’t know DeBerry’s publishing schedule. So each column was a surprise and delight. A collection of those columns, each so impressive,...

Reparations: Why Creative Writing

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 4, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, In the Name of Mississippi novel, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

This is the 6th installment in my reparations series. Click to read the introduction. Continue with background facts about me and the salacious real me facts. I’ve included some warnings, plus the joy of reparative work. Today, we turn to what led me to take up reparations. Fiction Leads to Fact Twice, I’ve delved into my...

Happy New Year’s, NOLA

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 3, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. Leave a Comment

There’s a softness in the New Orleans air. The littlest birds make the loudest flutter of wings as they fly into the cedar next door. The white pup down the street calls his barking hello from his balcony, the door behind him open to let in the soft air. The sun slants. The man working on his house speaks, nodding. Black garbage cans dot the...

“Oh, No!” Godzilla: Mardi Gras 2022

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 2, 2022. Posted in Featured, General. 8 Comments

I removed my hat. The priest’s thumb against my forehead was warm with oil, the ashes gritty. Afterwards, he us urged during Lent to take a step—maybe two steps—Godward. The quiet service with no singing, no Alleluias ended quietly. But before that, for a solid ten days, up and down the streets, day and night and into day again, the city...

Reparative Work

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 25, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments

A scene from our reparations journey: We sit in the office of Dr. Ebony Lumumba, the Chair of the English Department at Jackson State University. We’re discussing the amazing conversation the night before on the stage of the McCoy Auditorium between Dr. Lumumba and Imani Perry. Dr. Perry was discussing her new book, South to America. (as soon as...