Ellis Avery
Ellis Avery, 2011
Avery in 2011
BornElisabeth Atwood
(1972-10-25)October 25, 1972
DiedFebruary 15, 2019(2019-02-15) (aged 46)
Alma materBryn Mawr College
Goddard College
Years active2003–2019
Notable worksThe Teahouse Fire, The Last Nude, Tree of Cats
Notable awardsStonewall Book Award, Lambda Literary Award
SpouseSharon Marcus
Website
ellisavery.com

Ellis Avery (born Elisabeth Atwood; October 25, 1972 – February 15, 2019)[1] was an American writer. She won two Stonewall Book Awards (the only author to have done so),[2] one in 2008 for her debut novel The Teahouse Fire[3][4] and one in 2013 for her second novel The Last Nude.[5][6][7] The Teahouse Fire also won a Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction and an Ohioana Library Fiction Award in 2007. She self-published her memoir, The Family Tooth, in 2015.[8] Her final book, Tree of Cats, was independently published posthumously. An out lesbian, she is survived by her spouse, Sharon Marcus.[1]

Early life

Avery was raised in Columbus, Ohio, and Princeton, New Jersey.[9] Born Elisabeth Atwood,[10] she legally changed her name to Ellis Avery when she was 18.

Education and career

As Elisabeth Atwood, Avery attended Columbus School for Girls[10] in Columbus, Ohio, and Princeton Day School[11] in Princeton, N.J., from which she graduated a year early, in 1989. While at Princeton Day School, Avery edited and contributed to the literary magazine, Cymbals,[11] sang a cappella in the school's competitive Madrigals group,[11] participated in the drama club,[10] and earned a Merit Scholarship.[12] After Princeton Day School, Avery attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1993 with an independent major in Performance Studies.[9] While at Bryn Mawr, she was an editor of and frequent contributor to The College News.[13] She earned an MFA in Writing from Goddard College's low-residency program.[14]

She taught creative writing at Columbia University,[15] and previously at the University of California at Berkeley.[16]

In 2012, Avery was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that affects smooth muscle tissue.[1] From September 2017 through December 2018, she pursued a nurse practitioner degree at the MGH Institute of Health Professions and was posthumously inducted into Sigma Theta Tau, the Honor Society of Nursing. She died on February 15, 2019.

Culture

Themes of Avery's work include "aesthetically disciplined bodies" and "the will to make beauty that exceeds [pain]"[8] She was interested in the formation of queer identity before queerness was a "social category";[17] as such, she was at the forefront of a queer historical fiction movement in which the historical setting is, among other things, an allegory for the queer child awakening to her identity in a household that cannot recognize or name her existence. Avery and her spouse, Sharon Marcus, a professor of English and French literature, influenced each other's work through a shared interest in interrogating received social constructs about women's relationships and lesbian identity in historical contexts.[17] In her later work, through her struggles with cancer and reactive arthritis, Avery became interested in medical narratives by both those afflicted with illness and medical professionals, and in 2018 led a narrative medicine storytelling and writing workshop at Harvard Medical School.

Works

Awards

Daily haiku

Beginning in 2000, Avery wrote haiku daily.[16] She published these online, in hard copy in Broken Rooms (2014), in a self-published collection called 365 one-line haiku in 2015, and in haiku-a-day datebooks for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019.[28]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Award Winning Novelist Ellis Avery, 46, has Died". Lambda Literary Foundation. February 16, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  2. ↑ Enszer, Julie R. (2016-02-29). "Ellis Avery: On Writing Through Grief, Sickness, and Recovery". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  3. ↑ "Avery, Doty Win 2008 Stonewall Book Awards, GLBTRT Announces". US Fed News, January 14, 2008.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Teahouse Fire". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  5. ↑ "2013 Stonewall Book Awards Announced". American Libraries, January 29, 2013.
  6. ↑ Cody, Christine (2012-03-10). "A Conversation with Ellis Avery". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  7. 1 2 3 "The Last Nude". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  8. 1 2 3 "The Family Tooth". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  9. 1 2 "Bio". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  10. 1 2 3 "Forte et Gratum Winter 2011". Columbus School of Girls. 21 November 2011. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  11. 1 2 3 "The Link 1989" (PDF). Princeton Day School. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  12. ↑ "Town Topics, April 11, 1990". Town Topics. 11 April 1990. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  13. ↑ "Bryn Mawr Repository". Bryn Mawr College Repository: Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College, "Ellis Avery". Retrieved 2019-02-22.
  14. ↑ "Goddard College in Vermont". Poets & Writers. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  15. ↑ "A Passionate Portrait of an Artist and Her Muse". NPR, December 31, 2011.
  16. 1 2 "Profound Surrender: An Interview with Ellis Avery". The Common, April 3, 2016.
  17. 1 2 Neyenesch, Cassandra (2 February 2007). "Ellis Avery and Sharon Marcus with Cassandra Neyenesch". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved February 2, 2007.
  18. 1 2 "The Smoke Week". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  19. ↑ "Broken Rooms". Ellis Avery. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  20. ↑ Avery, Ellis (2019-03-01). "On Christopher Street Pier". Public Books. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  21. ↑ "Public Streets Archives". Public Books. Archived from the original on 2019-02-20. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  22. ↑ "Ellis Avery". Public Books. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  23. ↑ "Homepage". Public Books. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  24. ↑ Avery, Ellis (2020-10-25). Tree of Cats. Sharon Marcus. ISBN 978-0-578-75865-7.
  25. 1 2 "Ohioana Book Awards". Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  26. 1 2 "Past Award Winners | Ohioana Library". Ohioana Library. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  27. 1 2 "Golden Crown Literary Society". www.goldencrown.org. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  28. ↑ "Haiku Datebook 2019 by Ellis Avery | Harvard Book Store". shop.harvard.com. Archived from the original on 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
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