Hello!
I am a Timberwolf Pup. The daughter of a highly decorated World War II combat sergeant and a veteran of a war fought at home. Trained to be successful, secretive, and loyal, I earned a BA in English Literature at UC Berkeley, where my love of writing and reading began.
Since then, I’ve spent lots of time in writing groups, workshops, and coaching college-bound students. I’m a workshop facilitator with Write Around Portland and a teacher at Blackbird Studio for Writers. And I’ve witnessed the transformational power of storytelling in many lives, including my own. But we need safe places to be heard and felt so that we can dig down and unearth our deeper truths, which is why I started teaching. This is the type of storytelling that keeps me hooked on writing.
I spent over twenty years in the publishing industry, marketing and selling other people's beautiful books, and now I have one of my own. My debut memoir, Little Avalanches (Regalo Press March 2024), winner of the Rubery Book Award for 2024 Nonfiction Book of the Year and Finalist for The Oregon Book Award, is available in bookstores. I’ve made Portland, Oregon, my home. It’s where I write and teach and play outside.
Other Writing:
Substack, 2024 - Present
The Northwest Review, July 2023
Why My Daughter’s Tattoo Actually Left a Mark on Me
The Ethel, May 2024
The Rudder, March 2024
Flight School with Jennifer Lauck, March 2024
Psychology Today Q&A with Lynne Reeves Griffin R.N., M.ED., March 2024
““We all come from the past, and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long gone, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud.” ”
Media:
Why My Daughter’s Tattoo Actually Left a Mark on Me — What I learned about motherhood from a painful past.
Q&A: Mending Family Trauma — How to heal through compassionate dialogue.
Urban Legend
KEEPING IT REAL WITH JILLIAN MICHAELS
Podcast Interview: The Trauma Bounce — Jillian and author Becky Ellis go next level in a discussion about regret, forgiveness, and the need to help your abuser with their guilt.
Television interview on AM Northwest
NATIONAL TIMBERWOLF PUPS ASSOCIATION TIMBERWOLF HOWL
Book Review in the Timberwolf Book Corner
“Wartime veterans and their children will find this uncommonly strong debut a meaningful reading experience, and general readers will be moved by the story.”
Interview
Features article: How to Reconcile with an Estranged Relative by Belinda Luscombe
“Ellis expertly balances pain with compassion as she plunges into the depths of her father’s PTSD armed with frank and flinty prose. It’s a radiant and healing account.”
FLIGHT SCHOOL WITH JENNIFER LAUCK
The Artist at War — Hold tight to vision on the literary battlefield of creation.