Find Ellen Online…

Readers ask, Where do your stories come from? How did you get to be a writer? Well, it’s a long story; here’s the nutshell version.

Before I could read or write, after a bedtime story, my mother or my father, whoever was reading that night, prompted me for my story, of my day. “What was the best, what was the worst thing that happened today?” I dictated (my husband says I still dictate); my parent wrote down my words in a little red spiral notebook, and read back to me. Magic! I still have the notebook, and I’ve kept a journal ever since — the hard drive of my memory.

My grandmother was a letter-writer. Fat envelopes addressed in Gran’s sprawling ballpoint cursive arrived, and Mom pounced. Busy as she was, kids underfoot, teaching school, keeping house, Mom dashed postcards back. I yearned to be able to read and write messages. I learned as fast as I could, and still carry on the tradition of snail mail and postcards.

I love words, written and spoken. Once an amateur actor, now writing fiction, I play all the parts. Working, I often “write out loud,” speaking the words, experimenting, choosing, as I tap on the keyboard. Since my process isn’t silent, I work best in the upstairs bedroom of our old farmhouse in Pennsylvania, or my study in the DC apartment. I have a taste for solitude; writing alone I’m never lonely.

I planned to become an author even before my sixth-grade teacher read my palm and predicted it – she even chose my story for illustration by a Real Artist at the book fair. I wrote fiction and essays all through school, majored in English, interviewed poet Joseph Brodsky for the college paper.

But life has detours. My first job was a paralegal stint, following the story lines of a sort as I searched through boxes of telexes for evidence. Other jobs followed; one thing led to another, as it does. I became a social worker, practiced psychotherapy for many years while raising three kids with my husband, caring for my parents as they aged.

Absorbed by work and family life, for many years I did no creative writing – with one exception: my annual holiday newsletter. It’s an embarrassing genre, but I ruefully consider mine creative non-fiction: curated, sometimes airbrushed, selective memory. I distill the year, frame it in the context of world events. Really, the time capsule’s for me. But if I’m late getting it out, friends ask Where is the letter? as though waiting for the next installment of a serial story. Like my readers who ask, When is your next book is coming out? Why are you taking so long?

Busy, absorbing years went by. I never completely shelved the aspiration to become a writer;  I would do it “later.” In the fall of 2001, events changed my assumptions about “later.” 9/11 brought down the twin towers. My parents, my personal twin towers, died soon after. My assumptions changed. Time runs out. We never know when, but it is certain one day there will not be a “later”.

I retreated to our old farm in Pennsylvania, the second home in the foothills of the Alleghenies my parents found in 1968. A teenager then, a quiet spot in the middle of nowhere was not my idea of weekend fun. But over the years, especially as a parent myself, the beauty of the landscape, and the idiosyncratic house, grew on me. Grieving, I found comfort there, sorting through family pictures, papers, and letters. Surrounded by memories. And I began writing stories again. It is no exaggeration to say I owe my writing life to that farm. There’s a refrain in the Shaker song “Tis a Gift to be Simple.” It goes, Turn, turn and you’ll come round right. I turned and returned to a dream deferred.

Now, I’ve been writing for more than twenty years, full time (when not dusting the bookshelves and procrastinating) for almost ten. I’ve worked and learned with writers, at The Bennington Writing Seminars, at The Writers Center in Maryland, during Fellowships at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. And I’ve learned so much from my readers.  I often have two writing projects going – usually a novel, and something shorter I can get my arms around: a blog, an essay, a book review.

One more question my readers ask: Are you sorry you started so late?

No. My understanding, my writing, is enriched by all my lived experience. Especially personal experience as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend. And my understanding, my writing, is enriched by my years working as a therapist. I keep a firewall between my clients’ stories and my writing, but I learned so much as a psychotherapist about the human heart and spirit.

So, what made me a writer? Where do my stories come from? Life. I’m so grateful to be writing – now. As Ovid said, “Sing your song now, you cannot take it with you when you go.”

I grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland. A graduate of Smith College, Simmons School of Social Work, and The Bennington Writing Seminars. I practiced psychotherapy for many years. My novels and stories have garnered awards and recognition, and best of all — readers. I live in Washington DC and Manns Choice, Pennsylvania. I love to travel, reading and writing everywhere I go.

Favorite food:

Ramen.

Fresh tofu and noodles in Japan. Instant ramen spiked with Siracha in my kitchen. Ramen in Paris.

Favorite sport:

Solitary, natch. Swimming (both exercise and meditation). Best of all in the mountain lake near the farm.

Favorite guilty pleasure:

Perfume. My favorite is French; the perfumier calls it “an ode to the Mediterranean and the fig tree.” Lush writing, but scent is so evocative, and so hard to describe.

Favorite reader comment:

“I was reading your novel at the hairdresser’s and started crying. The stylist thought it was the haircut!”

• My essay “Creative Defiance” stands as my personal creed: individual acts of creative defiance help us carry on and value life’s beauty even in dark times.
• Here in this blog, “Little Boy Found,” I finally read my mother’s postcards to my grandmother – and find my lost brother.
• I write postcards too… Not so easy these days.
• Better late than never? Or writing just in time? Here I talk with Bloom.
• I’m not lonely while writing, because I’m never really alone. Here’s a little myth-busting.

Vanishing Point

Frieda’s Song

The Bowl with Gold Seams

Known By Heart: Collected Stories

Contents Under Pressure