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.”
Shelf Life of Happiness, Virginia Pye Virginia Pye had always written, but when she took a class from Annie Dillard at Wesleyan University in Connecticut she began to get a deeper sense of what writing requires.
The Widows, Jess Montgomery, Minotaur Books - Every writer knows that idea that won’t leave you alone, that book that begs to be written.
The Collectors Apprentice, B A Shapiro, Algonquin Books - Art, history, romance, murder, and a cast of characters that includes Henri Matisse, Gertrude Stein, and Picasso propel B.A. Shapiro’s latest novel, The Collector’s Apprentice.
Another Side of Paradise, Sally Koslow, Harper Collins - Already an experienced writer, having worked as a journalist and editor-in-chief of McCall’s Magazine, Sally Koslow found herself out of a job.
The Mutual UFO Society, Lee Martin, Dzanc Books - In Lee Martin’s latest short story collection, The Mutual UFO Network, he explores delicate moments of connection and alienation between strangers, neighbors, parents and children and strangers.
Sweet and Low, Nick White, Blue Rider Press - Writer Nick White bring his southern sensibility and experience as a gay man to bear on his telling stories that will stay with readers long after they close the covers of his books.
The Girl from Blind River, Gale Massey - Gale Massey’s debut novel, The Girl From Blind River, is a coming of age story that revolves around illegal gambling and small-town corruption in rural New York.
The Mutual UFO Network, Lee Martin, Simon & Schuster - In his latest short story collection, The Mutual UFO Network, Lee Martin focuses his lens on seemingly regular people in small towns and peels away the layers until we see even the most difficult characters in their full humanity.
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