Ellen Birkett Morris returns to the Spotlight this week to chat about her latest release, Beware the Tall Grass
Author Name: Ellen Birkett Morris
Book Title: Beware the Tall Grass
Book Genre: Fiction
Release Date: March 15, 2024
Publisher: Columbus State University Press
Welcome back, Ellen! How would you describe your latest release?
BEWARE THE TALL GRASS is the story of a mother’s love and a soldier’s courage and what ties them together.
What inspired the idea for this book?
I was on a car trip in 2014, when I heard a story about research into children who have experienced past life memories. It was too intriguing an idea to pass up. I thought instantly of a mother who wants a perfect childhood for her child and has to help him deal with bad memories and buried trauma.
How has your real life (day job, hobbies, etc.) informed your books?
I have always been intrigued with Vietnam, which was written about so well by Tim O’Brien. I also have uncles and a cousin who served and whose lives were affected by their service. I chose to tell the story of the soldier and place it in Vietnam because of them.
I spent ten years as the editor of the Patton Saber, a newsletter for the Patton Museum Foundation in Fort Knox, Kentucky, which deepened my understanding of the complexity soldier’s experiences at war.
Every writing job, whether it is freelance writing about food or promoting the work of feminist artists for the Kentucky Foundation for Women, has helped me get better at storytelling.
In what ways do you think you’ve evolved as an author since your first book came out?
My first book LOST GIRLS was short stories and this is a novel. I have learned how to delve more deeply into story, stretch out a narrative, and navigate the challenges of pacing and drama.
I have also grown really comfortable moving back and forth between forms. I write essays, poetry, short stories and novels. That offers me the freedom to let the subject guide me to the best form to tell the story I want to tell.
What’s your favorite part about writing/being an author?
I love spending my days working out the puzzle of whatever it is I am writing. I learn about myself, what I care about and what I am curious about. I get to connect with readers who need diversion or solace. Writing form me, at its best, is like the flow state that athletes talk about.
What’s capturing your imagination these days outside of reading and writing?
I took a standup comedy class just before the pandemic and loved the excitement of performing. Well-written jokes pull on the same skills of word choice, tension and release as stories do. I am up for that challenge. I want to play around and see what I can do.
My husband, who plays the banjo, is always encouraging me to try music. I’m not very good at learning new instruments. He recently bought me a purple plastic recorder. We’ll see . . .
What was the last book you read? What did you think of it?
I am reading Alice McDermott’s Absolution and I am in awe of her way with characters and the period of history (Vietnam in the Kennedy Era) that she is portraying. There are so many beautiful details and interesting insights into the lives of women in that era.
Can you tell us about what you’re working on now?
I am revising a novel about a young astronomer enmeshed in a celestial discovery, a love triangle, her mother’s illness and protests against the use of sacred sites for scientific discovery. The vibe is Contact meets the Big Bang Theory.
Where can readers find you?
Website: https://ellenbirkettmorris.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellenbirkettmorriswriter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/birkett_morris
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellenbirkettmorris/
Events:
Signing and Conversation with Ian Stansel @ Carmichael’s Bookstore March 28, 2024, 2720 Frankfort Avenue, Louisville, KY 40206, 7:00 pm ET
Signing and Discussion @ Prairie Lights Bookstore, April 25, 2024, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa, City, IA 52240, 7:00 pm CT
Signing and Conversation with Kelly Fordon @ Pages Bookshop, Thursday, May 9, 6 pm ET, 19560 Grand River
Detroit, MI 48223
Thank you, Ellen! Beware the Tall Grass is out now.
Beware the Tall Grass
Beware the Tall Grass weaves the stories of the Sloans, a modern family grappling with their young son Charlie’s troubling memories of a past life as a soldier in Vietnam, and Thomas Boone, a young man caught up in the drama of mid-sixties America who is sent to Vietnam. Eve Sloan is challenged as a mother to make sense of Charlie’s increasing references to war, and her attempts to get to the bottom of Charlie’s past life memories threaten her marriage, while Thomas struggles with loss and first love, before being thrust into combat and learning what matters most. Beware the Tall Grass explores the power of love and mercy with grace and artful sensitivity in a world where circumstances often occur far beyond our control.
Author bio:
Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Beware the Tall Grass, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence, judged by Lan Samantha Chang. She is also the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories, winner of the Pencraft Award. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, and South Carolina Review, among other journals. Morris is a recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship for her fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council.