Writer Ellen Morris Prewitt Blog

A Life of Belhaven Houses

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 11, 2018. Posted in General, LOVE, Writing. 10 Comments on A Life of Belhaven Houses

Last week, I drove through my old Belhaven neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, taking photos of the houses I’ve lived in. I spent two periods of my life in the neighborhood: from age 3 years to 12; and again through the decades of the 1980s and ’90s. My life in Belhaven began in a duplex my mother rented when we moved back from...

The Tooting Trolley

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 10, 2018. Posted in General, GRIEF. 2 Comments on The Tooting Trolley

At the foot of the Mud Island bridge runs a trolley. The trolley is painted a happy yellow and green. It toots across the street like a toy. But every day, when the trolley is approaching and the caution arm descending, people veer around the arm and scoot cross the track. This is the level of our collective sophistication: trying to “beat...

Not In Cahoots with the Nightmare

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 7, 2018. Posted in GOD, HOMELESSNESS, Writing. 4 Comments on Not In Cahoots with the Nightmare

I have been grappling with—what the hell, that makes it sound so sophisticated; I’ve been moping around the house wondering—the “Why?” question. Actually, it’s a “What?” question. What am I doing with my life right now that matters? When I was facilitating the Door of Hope Writing Group, the answer to this...

I Hear the Mississippi Summer Calling

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 3, 2018. Posted in General, LOVE, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments on I Hear the Mississippi Summer Calling

The smell of a Mississippi summer is a dirt and weed smell, hot and bitter and full of insect noises and blaring sunlight and popping grass seeds that scent the air loamy so that your mind wanders to your toes and the dirt below and the small things that crawl inside the cool dark earth. But, in a flash, the blazing sun will bring you back to...

This is Why I Write

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 29, 2018. Posted in General, Writing. 8 Comments on This is Why I Write

So, I’m working on an essay about my escaping to the family farm in response to Mississippi’s racial mores that constricted behavior in the 1960s, and I’m using a bull (yep) as the central metaphor, and I’m afraid folks might not get it because the bull is incredibly destructive and he’s the POSITIVE metaphor,...

Odd but God

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 27, 2018. Posted in GOD, LOVE. 2 Comments on Odd but God

Can I talk about God for a minute? I mean the God that presents when we step out in vulnerability, trusting that the Spirit guided our first faltering step and will be there if we succeed or fail. Lord, these steps are hard. Not because they involve a dramatic climb to the mountaintop where we’ll change the world. Rather, they mock us...

Podcasting or Hacking Through the Jungle

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 24, 2018. Posted in General, Writing. 12 Comments on Podcasting or Hacking Through the Jungle

I did it. I recorded the podcast that will accompany the release of TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE. The podcast, which I’ve named ELLEN’S VERY SOUTHERN VOICE: NOVELS TOLD WRITE, offers an extended version of the novel. Each of the 26 chapters has accompanying commentary with Helpful Train Hints and Fun Chicken...

TRACKING HAPPINESS: Cover Reveal

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 16, 2018. Posted in GRIEF, LOVE, Writing. 13 Comments on TRACKING HAPPINESS: Cover Reveal

Here it is. The cover for TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE. I love this cover. My sister Elli shot the photo—yep, she’s a professional photographer. That’s Goldie the Chicken as the chicken cover model. For the record, I am walking down abandoned railroad tracks. I wasn’t going to get hit by an oncoming...

My Uncle Merwin

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 8, 2018. Posted in GOD, LOVE. 10 Comments on My Uncle Merwin

Without him, I might have never liked eggs. That seems like such a small accomplishment, frivolous even. But I’d been forced to eat eggs almost every morning of my life. I hated eggs. My loathing of eggs exceeded the bounds of good manners—as a child, I hid my eggs wherever I could find a secretive spot: under my plate, tucked against...

#MLK50: No Neat Bow

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 5, 2018. Posted in LOVE, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on #MLK50: No Neat Bow

I spent yesterday at two different events. One was a service at Calvary Episcopal Church to dedicate a new marker on the site of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s slave market. The old marker referred to Forrest’s time in Memphis where his “business enterprises made him wealthy.” The old marker did not identify Forrest’s business as human...