ELIZABETH EARLEY
Writer. Novelist. Memoirist. Essayist.
BIO
Elizabeth Earley is the author of two novels: A Map of Everything, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and Like Wings, Your Hands, which won the Women’s Prose Prize at Red Hen Press, the American Fiction Prize for best LGBTQ novel, and was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction by the Publishing Triangle as well as a Foreword INDIES Finalist. Earley is also an editor for a nonprofit, feminist press, Jaded Ibis Press, committed to publishing socially engaged literature.
I have been writing since age ten, starting with short stories and poems that I would read to anyone willing to listen. In elementary school, during recess, I made up stories and read them aloud, acted them out in the mirror. Before that, my imagination was unceasing. People might have thought me a recluse, but I had a multitude of friends and activities going on all the time in my private world. There has been a passion and a power in me. Even as a child, I knew that was where the writing came from.
I plan to write novels. Specifically, I plan to write literature that intricately explores some of the most unavoidable aspects of this human condition, some of which are: The artfulness of—and the relentless persistence of—the lies we tell ourselves to make everything alright; The ways we’re inherently trapped (in the body, behind sense and perception, within institutions, societies, cultures, disabilities, etc.) and our astonishingly resourceful, spiraling ways to transcend; Self-serving motivations that cause us to transgress peaceful coexistence and the consequences (both positive and negative) of these; Our complicity in situations by which we feel victimized.
My goal is to write literature that compels readers to examine their own ethical and existential questions or dilemmas, social values, and prejudices. Most importantly, I plan to write prolifically. Writing is simply my highest purpose. The passion of it and the pulling, calling power from which it comes has always been mine. I choose to answer the call.
Here is my longer bio (in the third person):
Elizabeth Earley is a board member at Jaded Ibis Press. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her stories and essays have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The First Line Magazine, Fugue, Hair Trigger, and Glimmer Train among other publications. Elizabeth is the recipient of the David Friedman Memorial Prize for Fiction, has twice been a finalist for the AWP New Journals Award, has received two pushcart nominations, and was a finalist for the 2011 Bakeless Literary Prize for Fiction. Her debut novel, A Map of Everything, was a debut fiction finalist for the Lambda Literary Prize. Her second novel, Like Wings, Your Hands, published by Red Hen Press, won the Women’s Prose Prize judged by Aimee Bender, the American Fiction Prize for best LGBTQ novel, and was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction by the Publishing Triangle (alongside Ocean Vuong and Jacqueline Woodson), as well as a Foreword INDIES Finalist.
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.
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.
APPEARANCES
Like Wings, Your Hands
Book Tour
September 27, 2019 - Pre-Publication | PASADENA, CA | Red Hen Press - 7pm
Red Hen Press
1540 Lincoln Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103
Appearing in Lambda Lit Fest
October 22, 2019 | CAMBRIDGE, MA | Harvard Book Store - 7pm
Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
Appearing with Zenaida Peterson and Nicole (Cole) Rodriguez
Cole Rodriguez
Cole Rodriguez is an internationally recognized spoken word artist, originating from Boston, MA. As a six-year participant in the National Poetry Slam, Cole has competed against the top-ranked poets in the United States.
Zenaida Peterson
Zenaida Peterson is the author of Breakfast for Dinner and Other Blasphemous Things as well as the founder of the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam (FEMS), an all ages radical poetry slam for feminine folks.
October 24, 2019 | CLEVELAND, OH | Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry - 6:30pm
Mac’s Backs-Books On Coventry
1820 Coventry Rd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Appearing with Julia Koets
Julia Koets
Julia Koets is the author of The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays (November 5, 2019, Red Hen Press) and Hold Like Owls (2012, The University of South Carolina Press). Julia is the winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Book Award judged by Mark Doty and the 2011 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize judged by National Book Award Winner Nikky Finney.
October 27, 2019 | CHICAGO, IL | Women & Children First - 4pm
Women & Children First
5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640
Appearing with Dasha Kelly and Ada Cheng
Dasha Kelly
Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, facilitator, and creative change agent who has written for national, regional, and local magazines. She has published three collections of poems, essays, and short stories in addition to four full-length spoken word recordings and two novels.
Ada Cheng
Ada Cheng was the winner of 2017 Bughouse Square Debates. She has been featured at storytelling shows in Chicago, Atlanta, Cedar Rapids, New York, Asheville, and Kansas City.
November 2, 2019 | SAN DIEGO, CA | The Book Catapult - 7:30pm
The Book Catapult
3010-b Juniper St, San Diego, CA 92104
Appearing with Lily Hoang and Kazim Ali
Lily Hoang
Lily Hoang is the author of five books of prose, including Changing (recipient of a PEN Open Books Award) and A Bestiary (winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's Non-Fiction Book Prize).
Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali has authored several volumes of poetry (including Inquisition, Sky Ward, which won the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and The Far Mosque, which won the Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award), novels (including The Secret Room: A String Quartet), and books of essays (including hybrid memoirs Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice).
November 4, 2019 | PHOENIX, AZ | Changing Hands Bookstore - 7pm
Changing Hands Bookstore
300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013
Appearing with Joy Young
Joy Young
Joy Young is a performance and spoken word artist. Their performance pieces focus on transgressing borders (both real and imagined) and entering social justice topics through poetic personal narratives. Joy has been featured on Button Poetry and Everyday Feminism, as well as on stages and in colleges and classrooms across the country.
November 7, 2017 | PORTLAND, OR | Powell's Books on Hawthorne - 7:30pm
POWELL’S BOOKS ON HAWTHORNE
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, OR 97214
Appearing with Johanna Stoberock
Johanna Stoberock
Johanna Stoberock is the author of the novels Pigs (Forthcoming, Red Hen Press, September 2019) and City of Ghosts (W.W. Norton). Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Better: Culture & Lit, The Wilson Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Front Porch, and the 2014 Best of the Net Anthology.
Monica Drake
Monica Drake is the author of two novels, Clown Girl and The Stud Book, and a collection of linked stories, The Folly of Loving Life. Her essays and stories have appeared in The Sun, Paris Review Daily, Oregon Humanities Magazine, Northwest Review, the Rumpus, Longreads and elsewhere, including anthologies. She currently teaches at the Pacific NW College of Art, in Portland, Oregon.
BLOG
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Contagious
My son was delighted to figure, as we walked, that he was not only five, but five and a half, and like only a person that age can genuinely do, he sang a song about being five and a half. Wearing waterproof boots, he greeted every puddle with enthusiasm. The deeper...
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