ELIZABETH EARLEY

Writer. Novelist. Memoirist. Essayist.

ABOUT

Artists and Writers Unite to Lead a Cultural Revolution, Healing the Wounds of Hate Through Creative Expression

We’re living in trying times. Between the US government, the rise of the religious right, and the record-breaking number of anti-queer laws — now, more than ever — we need each other. As a writer, influencer, and creative change agent, my goal is to do everything in my power to elevate historically marginalized voices like mine.

I am a queer, ex-Christian, scientist turned agnostic with magical thinking and the parent of two children co-parenting with other queer parents. I am the author of the popular Substack series, Queering Reality, with 100,000 subscribers. I am also the author of two novels: A Map of Everything, a debut finalist for the Lambda Literary Prize; and Like Wings, Your Hands (Red Hen Press), winner of the Women’s Prose Prize (judged by Aimee Bender), the American Fiction Prize for Best LGBTQ novel, and a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction by the Publishing Triangle, alongside Ocean Vuong and Jacqueline Woodson. In addition to two published works of fiction, I hold an MFA in Fiction from Antioch University-Los Angeles. My stories and essays have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The First Line Magazine, Fugue, Hair Trigger, and Glimmer Train, among other publications. I was awarded the David Friedman Memorial Prize for Fiction and was twice a finalist for the AWP New Journals Award. I have received two Pushcart nominations and was a finalist for the 2011 Bakeless Literary Prize for Fiction. I am currently the president of Jaded Ibis Press, a nonprofit feminist press committed to publishing socially engaged literature.

“In her frank, clear prose, Earley moves through multiple places and characters with startling ease, building a world at once honest and graceful.” — Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master, a New York Times Notable book

“Urgent, essential, and previously untold, LIKE WINGS, YOUR HANDS offers readers a voice and perspective glaringly absent in the history of literature. Although that fact alone should be sufficient to make Elizabeth Early’s novel required reading, readers will ultimately keep turning the pages for the intimacy and innovation of this passionately necessary book.” — Gina Frangello, author of A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting

“Like Wings, Your Hands takes us into a world that exists all around us, yet few of us even see. It’s a place of raw and heartbreaking human experience, and Elizabeth Earley has revealed its unique language: elemental, luminous, and beautiful.” — Peter Nichols, author of The Rocks 

“A helixing of the various incapacities of our bodies, LIKE WINGS, YOUR HANDS embraces the courage of yearning and the hopeful escape of dreams. Elizabeth Earley is bold and real and regretlessly political and all the things every writer strives for—and profound, absolutely profound.” — Lily Hoang, author of Changing, recipient of a PEN Open Books Award

“Elizabeth Earley has written a stunningly original novel—one that breaks ground as it breaks silences, one that thrums with insight and compassion and devastating beauty. Entering LIKE WINGS, YOUR HANDS feels like entering the dream box constructed by one of its characters—it catapults us through space and time, zooming us in to the cellular level and blasting us out to the stars. I love this book with 100% of my heart.” — Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide

BOOKS

LIKE WINGS, YOUR HANDS

Both a philosophical novel and a coming-of-age story, Like Wings, Your Hands explores a mother-son relationship in the context of disability and interdependence. The novel was selected by Aimee Bender as the winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize. 

American Fiction Award Seal - Like Wings, Your Hands - Elizabeth Earley   

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A MAP OF EVERYTHING

Anne’s sister, a bright and lovely teenager, sustains a traumatic brain injury after a near-fatal car accident. As a result, Anne and her siblings and parents are thrown into a decades-long struggle for belonging, deliverance and redemption — with surprising results. A Map of Everything intimately explores the fragile nature of family dynamics, revealing what is salvaged, what is lost, and what is gained after a tragedy hits home.

Lambda Literary Awards - Elizabeth Earley

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QUEERING REALITY

Welcome to Queering Reality, a series of writings and interviews that dares to challenge norms and break boundaries around stuck perspectives. In a society that often seeks to define and confine identities, Queering Reality is a space where we deconstruct those barriers, explore the nuances of human experience, and celebrate the richness of human diversity.

Our Mission is telling the experience of the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. We believe that by queering our understanding of reality—by questioning and redefining the norms—we can create a more inclusive, compassionate, and vibrant world.

CONTACT

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