Ellen Birkett Morris is an award-winning journalist whose interviews and reviews have appeared in Authorlink, Prairie Schooner Online, The Louisville Courier-Journal, and reprinted in the reader’s guides to The Receptionist and Clever Girl. Her fiction has appeared in journals including Antioch Review, South Caroline Review, and Notre Dame Review. Ellen is a regular contributor to Authorlink.
Ellen is an avid reader and channeled her love of writing into a career as a journalist before taking up creative writing herself. She has contributed articles to national publications including Cooking Light, www.DrKoop.com, and www.womensenews.org.
Ellen’s creative writing crosses genres. She is the author of Surrender, a poetry chapbook. Her fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in journals including Antioch Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, wigleaf, Inscape, The Butter, and Shenandoah.
Ellen loves literary fiction, poetry, essays and mysteries. She seeks to interview authors who write beautifully and have a style that is both evocative and accessible.
“I love the work of writers who present unique characters revealed through quirky, particular details. If the characters are believable, I will follow them anywhere. I am less interested in celebrity books that are a collection of random anecdotes. I am looking for a narrative that takes me somewhere.”
Ellen enjoys hearing about where writers get their ideas for work and about the challenges each new book represents.
“It is an honor to talk to writers who share their creative process and talk about the challenges they have overcome. These kinds of insights help us become better writers and better readers.”
The Dutch House, Ann Patchett, Deckle House - Ann Patchett’s latest novel The Dutch House reads like a modern fairy tale with a house that seems enchanted or damned, depending on which character’s perspective you are grounded in, an evil stepmother, and two siblings,
Costalegre, Courtney Maum, - In Costalegre, Courtney Maum’s third novel, Lara and Leonora Calaway are taking refuge in a remote mansion in the Mexican wilderness in 1937 with a group of Surrealist artists, who Leonora has helped to escape Hitler’s Europe.
Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout, - I remember the moment I fell in love with Olive Kitteridge. It was near the end of the book and Olive was lying down looking out a window.
Things You Save In a Fire, Katherine Center, Macmillan - Katherine Center has a knack for creating women characters that are down to earth, yet heroic, inspiring, but real.
Vexations, Caitlin Horrocks, Little Brown - Caitlin Horrocks, author of The Vexations, had finished her MFA at Arizona State University in 2007 and had been writing short stories for a few years, when she signed up for a summer workshop in 2010.
We Love Anderson Cooper, R. L. Maizes, Macmillian - In her debut short story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper, R.L. Maizes takes readers into some intriguing scenarios: a young man who decides to come out during his bar mitzvah, a disfigured tattoo artist who discovers healing powers, a therapist, whose new couch has the power to take away sadness, a woman haunted by the spirit of her dead dogs.
The Editor, Steven Rowley, Peguin Random House - The Editor Explores Mother/Son Relationships - I can’t lie. I was drawn to Steven Rowley’s novel THE EDITOR for the chance to spend time, even fictionally, with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Magnetic Girl, Jessica Handler, Hub City Press - History and Imagination Yield Compelling Tale
The Shaman of Turtle Valley, Cifford Garstang, Braddock Avenue Books - A painting hangs over the fireplace in Clifford Garstang's home in rural Virginia of a temple with the Mountain God between two mountain ranges.
Ripples, Evan Williams, Southern Fried Karma - Place is essential to storytelling. This is a concept author Evan Williams is quick to embrace.