Writer Ellen Morris Prewitt Blog

Oh, To Be a Dermatologist

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 24, 2021. Posted in General. 3 Comments on Oh, To Be a Dermatologist

So I’m sitting in the cubicle and the doctor is peering at my skin while he dictates to the nurse who’s plinking away at her laptop, saying, “That’s an AK,” and then he adds, “Put a spot on that before we lose it,” (or something like that) and then he says, “Mind if I burn that?” and I ask, ...

Get Ready: It’s WTF Time, Y’all

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 22, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments on Get Ready: It’s WTF Time, Y’all

I want to tell you a story. The characters in this story came from many lands, but eventually their view of themselves sorted around one fact: they did not come from Africa. Or China…or anywhere “that just doesn’t look white.” I’m a character in this story, the starring role, in fact. Fair warning: I’m not the hero. The Story Once...

Nekkid People

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 6, 2021. Posted in Featured, General, GOD. 4 Comments on Nekkid People

This morning in church I was a lay reader for the first time in my life. You usually have to go through training or some such before they let you stand at the head of the church at the heavily-carved lectern with a microphone in front of you and read the word of God—we say that after the reading, intone it, actually: “The Word of God.”...

A Photo of Joy

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 4, 2021. Posted in LOVE. 6 Comments on A Photo of Joy

One year ago May 29th, Mother passed into The Next Big Thing. Last week, the daughter of one of her closest life-long friends sent us a photo. The photo is from the Millsaps College yearbook. I’ve seen it before. We three girls spent hours (and hours and hours) as kids going through Mother’s college and high school annuals. Virginia...

Zoom Tomorrow to Meet John and Mary Margaret

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 3, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on Zoom Tomorrow to Meet John and Mary Margaret

There are several ways to explore the past. In John and Mary Margaret, Susan Cushman choses to see Mississippi’s 1960s racial turbulence of Mississippi through the eyes of an unlikely interracial couple at Ole Miss. Watching history through the eyes of young love, plus the mature reflection of a second chance, gives us an intimate look at...

Wiping the Slate Clean

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 17, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation, Writing. 18 Comments on Wiping the Slate Clean

You know when you’ve solved a complex calculus equation, and you take the eraser and literally wipe the slate clean? I did that last week with my writing career. Three acceptances triggered the erasure: First, I was accepted into the Community Writers Workshop in the Virtual Valley for July of this year. This fabulous writers conference...

For Those Who Mother

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 8, 2021. Posted in General, LOVE. 13 Comments on For Those Who Mother

An Unexpected Dilemma The flower bins at Claiborne Hills, usually so skimpy in their offerings, were fat with flowers, and I realized the bounty was for tomorrow’s Mother’s Day. I studied the roses and whatever flower it is they falsely color pink so that it looks like when we children stood white spirea in a glass of water with...

Bottling Happiness

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 2, 2021. Posted in General, LOVE. 12 Comments on Bottling Happiness

“This, if I could just stop this for a minute and bottle this right here,” my daughter-in-law said Saturday night. We were at the table on the screen porch at the beach house eating Ryan’s boiled shrimp and Tom’s waygu steak. I had cut flowers from the yard to decorate the table, and we were all full of meat and peas and...

So You Love that Racist Movie?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 23, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on So You Love that Racist Movie?

Scene I Y’all, Gone with the Wind was my first grown-up movie (that means my first movie that wasn’t a Saturday morning matinee where my friends and I ran up and own the aisles acting like fools). We went at night, my mother and two sisters and I. Watching this movie I learned a very important plot point. During the burning of Atlanta,...

Do You Know Your Patterns of Racism?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 7, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 18 Comments on Do You Know Your Patterns of Racism?

All the news about attacks on Asian Americans, I wanted to speak out. So I began writing a blog post, and soon enough, I took a hard turn and found myself re-hashing our national history of white racism toward Black folks, with some scant references to indentured Chinese. I wrote, and I revised, and somehow I couldn’t get it right. Then I realized,...