March 2024: Ellen’s nonfiction piece “The Original Girl Dinner” publishes with The Inquisitive Eater (The New School).
February 2024: Underground YA, a writing workshop and critique group in NYC, celebrates its 5th Anniversary!
December 2023: Ellen’s short story “S.P.A.M.”, the Grand Prize Winner for F(r)iction’s Spring Short Story Contest, selected by guest judge Madeline Miller (Circe), publishes! Read it here.
February 2023: Underground YA, a writing workshop and critique group in NYC, celebrates its Four Year Anniversary!
2022: Ellen’s short story “S.P.A.M.” has been chosen as the Grand Prize Winner for short stories in F(r)iction’s Spring 2022 Literary Contest, selected by guest judge Madeline Miller (Circe), who called the story “gripping, terrifying, lyrical, absolutely great story telling!"
November 2022: Catch Ellen at the Vermont College of Fine Arts as the guest for the MFA program’s November residency.
October 2022: Ellen’s poem “Southland Eulogy” has been named a finalist and one of four select honorable mentions in the Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Prize. Published in their print journal in late 2022.
September 2022: Catch Ellen giving the Found in Translation lecture on publishing with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Eastern Pennsylvania chapter.
July 2022: Ellen’s short story “Baptism” is named the Grand Prize Winner of the New Millennium Writings 2022 Award for Fiction.
February 2022: Underground YA, a writing workshop and critique group in NYC, celebrates its Three Year Anniversary!
May 2021: Ellen’s short story “My Old Kentucky Home” wins honorable mention in Tulip Tree Review’s Wild Women short fiction contest, and will be published in their Spring/Summer 2021 Wild Women issue.
April 2021: Ellen’s short story “My Old Kentucky Home” is named a semifinalist in Tulip Tree Review’s Wild Women short fiction contest.
March 2021: I am beyond thrilled to announce that I am now officially represented by Tricia Lawrence at Erin Murphy Literary Agency! Tricia will be championing my southern gothic, rural fantasy novel MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT, and my future projects to come.
February 2021: Underground YA, a writing workshop and critique group in NYC, celebrates its Two Year Anniversary!
May 2020: Ellen’s southern gothic YA manuscript MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT has been selected as the inaugural winner of SCBWI's A. Orr Fantasy Grant for children's/YA speculative fiction.
February 2020: Underground YA, a writing workshop and critique group in NYC, celebrates its One Year Anniversary!
May 2019: The Vermont College of Fine Arts’ literary journal Hunger Mountain has chosen Ellen’s YA short story, “The Cave Sighs”, as the winner of their 2019 Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult & Children’s Writing.
February 2019: Underground YA is founded.
June 2018: Ellen’s short story “My Old Kentucky Home” has been named a finalist in Glimmer Train's March/April 2018 Fiction Open contest.
March 2018: The San Francisco Writers Conference names Prison of Esper the WINNER in the Children's/YA category in the 2018 Writing Contest. Thank you, @SFWC!
February 2018: Ellen’s grounded sci-fi YA manuscript Prison of Esper has been selected as a finalist in the Children's/YA category in the San Francisco Writers Conference (@SFWC) 2018 Writing Contest.
March 2017: Ellen’s grounded sci-fi YA manuscript Prison of Esper places 4th out of 500 entries in Serendipity Literary Agency's 7th Annual YA Discovery Contest.