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.”
Awayland, Ramona Ausubel, Random House - A mother fades into the mist, a lonely Cyclops tries online dating, a young boy looking for direction takes a job in Turkey and ends up comforting a grieving widow, mummified animals robbed from Egyptian pyramids offer their “thanks.”
Christmas in July, Alan Michael Parker, Dzanc books - In his latest novel, Alan Michael Parker tells the story of the Christmas Danzig, a thirteen-year-old with terminal cancer
Halsey Street, Naima Coster, Amazon - Naima Coster’s debut novel HALSEY STREET is a story of estrangement and reconciliation that follows the effects of gentrification on the life of a family and the Brooklyn neighborhood where they reside.
Author Interview: White Houses, Amy Bloom, Random House - Amy Bloom’s novel White Houses is a compelling fictive exploration of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickok. This is Bloom’s first book of historical fiction. The novel belies the common narrative of Eleanor Roosevelt as a woman who was disappointed in marriage and became an asexual being.
The Going and Goodbye, Shuly Xóchitl Cawood, Platypus Press - To understand love, you must first understand power—the balance of it, when to give it up, when to take it back.
Story of Arthur Truluv, Elizabeth Berg, Penguin - the 28th book from the prolific author Elizabeth Berg, explores issues of grief, death and aging with a gentle touch that reminds readers of the everyday grace that can be found in life.
Heating and Cooling, Beth Ann Fennelly, W.W.Norton - Good writing in any genre rings with truth, personal and universal. In her latest book of micro-memoirs, Heating & Cooling, Beth Ann Fennelly shares her truth about life’s moments, big and small, with poignancy and humor.
Segal Explores Complex Family Life in The Awkward Age An exclusive Authorlink interview By Columnist Ellen Birkett Morris... View Article
Extraordinary Adventures, Daniel Wallace, Macmillan - Daniel Wallace is not particularly interested in tracking the origin of his latest novel Extraordinary Adventures. In the years it takes to write a book, Wallace says the creation of the writing starts to get fictionalized.
The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo, Ian Stansel, Houghton Mifflin - Ian Stansel had been working on a novel for two and a half years when he decided to lay that project aside to write what would become his debut novel, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo.