Breaking into Publishing: Insights from Ellis Elliot
Ellis Elliot is a dancer, a teacher, a poet, and soon to be published novelist. Her journey towards publication and her life experiences remind all of us that inspiration comes from many places.
The old adage, write what you know, certainly holds true for Ellis, who is the author of the poetry collection Break in the Field.
Ellis is one of the founding members of the Old Scratch Press Poetry and Short Form Collective, which is where I first became familiar with her work. She took up writing professionally, later in life, earning her MFA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University in 2021. Ellis founded and shares her insights as a teacher at Bewilderness Writing and is an editor at The Dewdrop.
The story of how Ellis has tapped into her myriad of experiences to create a unique poetry collection, followed by a forthcoming novel, provide good insight for aspiring writers beginning their publication journey.
Anyone who is familiar with the old folktale The Treasure, may recall that sometimes our dreams are closer than we think. We just have to look in the right place.
Questions posed by Nadja Maril to Ellis Elliot
What led you to compose the series of poems that comprise your collection, Break in the Field?
When I remarried my husband, Tim, a widower, in 2011, I gained 3 stepsons to add to my 3 boys. One of my stepsons, Julian, is profoundly disabled and unable to walk, talk, or feed himself. Needless to say, I had a very steep learning curve to climb in the special-needs world. As a result of that immersion I found myself contemplating some very basic questions about what it means to be human and why we are here. My collection is, for the most part, in response to that.
I understand the cover of the book has a special significance, can you explain.
I am a dollhouse and tiny-world-builder. Part of that fascination is the ability to create any ideal world you can conjure. I chose to have a dollhouse interior (one of mine) on the cover because that idealized world rarely contains a wheelchair. I think it juxtaposes our human leaning toward obtaining external ideals, when in reality it is when that ideal is shattered that we learn how to truly inhabit our humanity.
What other professions have you worked in
I’ve been a secretary, high-school English teacher, receptionist, retail in a gift shop, worked in college admissions, run a dance studio, and taught dance for 40 years.
Is there a place you call home?
I love this question, because so frequently where we live and what we think of as “home” are totally different, and it can often be based on feeling rather than fact. Home for me would be the hills of Northwest Arkansas where I grew up, and the feeling of the mountains of East Tennessee and a farm in North Carolina, where my grandparents lived.
Do you have specific music that aids you in writing or editing
I love all kinds of music, but have to have silence when writing or editing. There’s way too much going on up there as it is, and I’m easily distracted, so I have to keep the music off.
If you could spend some time with a favorite author, who would it be and why?
It’s a tie between Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty. O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Welty’s “A Worn Path” are favorites. Both led interesting lives outside of writing; Welty was a photographer and O’Connor a cartoonist and painter, but wrote in different styles and subject matter from their experiences as women in the South at that time.
Do you have any favorite routines associated with your writing process
My Dad was a writer so I have his favorite old Timex watch nearby when I write. I have a big magnet board by my desk filled with photos, poems, and sticky notes particularly relevant to what I’m working on. I guess that would be called an “inspiration board”. Not necessarily what you’d call “routines”, but sort of.
What are you currently working on and why is it important to you?
I just finished my first cozy mystery based on a lineage of Appalachian “granny women” or “granny witches” that was inspired by a memoir my great-great grandfather wrote during the Civil War in East Tennessee. “Granny Women” served their isolated mountain communities as midwives, healers, and by preparing the dead for burial.
The book is about a small mountain-town amateur sleuth who finds herself involved in a murder mystery while at the same time discovering she has “gifts” like those of her grandmother and great-aunt. It is titled A Fire Circle Mystery: A Witch Awakens and will be out in May. ( Current Words Publishing)
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on April 2, 2025.
