Elizabeth Earley |

ELIZABETH EARLEY

Writer. Novelist. Straight up literary gangster.

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. She is also the Acquisitions Editor at Jaded Ibis Press, a feminist press 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 would make up stories and read them aloud, sometimes acting them out, alone in the bathroom before the mirror. Prior to 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 bio (in the third person):

Elizabeth Earley is the one of the acquisitions editors for 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 new novel, Like Wings, Your Hands, forthcoming on October 15, 2019, won the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize in 2017.

“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

My latest novel, Like Wings, Your Hands, was selected by Aimee Bender as the winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize. The novel will be published by Red Hen Press on October 15, 2019.

A MAP OF EVERYTHING

A MAP OF EVERYTHING includes illustrations and visual art by Christa Donner, a world renowned artist teaching at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Christa is known for revisions of the female body, health, and illness through drawing, video, collage, small press comics and large scale installation works.

Lambda Literary Awards - Elizabeth Earley

APPEARANCES

Like Wings your Hands
book tour

September 27, 2019 - Pre-Publication | PASADENA, CA | Red Hen Press

Red Hen Press
1540 Lincoln Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103
Appearing in Lambda Lit Fest

October 22, 2019 | CAMBRIDGE, MA | Harvard Book Store

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.

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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.

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October 24, 2019 | CLEVELAND, OH | Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry

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

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. She has written for national, regional and local magazines; published three collections of poems, essays and short stories; four full-length spoken word recordings; and two novels.

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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

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 is the author of several volumes of poetry, including Inquisition, Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry and The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet and among his books of essays are the hybrid memoir Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.

November 4, 2019 | PHOENIX, AZ | Changing Hands Bookstore

Changing Hands Bookstore
300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013
Appearing with Joy Young

Joy Young

Joy Young is a performance and teaching spoken word artist. Their performance works focuses on transgressing borders, both real and imagined, entering social justice topics through poetic personal narratives, 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

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.

BLOG

Giving Names to All The Animals

Mar 12, 2019

I've often thought about the eternal round: of patterns, of cycles, of time and space, of existence as we know it. Like a snake swallowing its tail. Pain kisses the sole of pleasure. Hate and love are the same animal. I've built philosophical arguments in favor of...

The Price of Understanding Death

Dec 30, 2018

“White Tantric Yoga is an ancient group meditative practice that works on clearing out the deepest corridors of the subconscious mind.” –3HO I found myself, for the third time in my life, cloaked in white, sitting shoulder to shoulder with other people in white who...

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BIO