Ellen began life three weeks ahead of schedule on a 60 degree day in December in Washington, D. C. "You always were in a hurry," her mom says. Just a few months later she crossed the mountains and the prairies with her family to become a life-long denizen of Portland, Oregon.

Her writing career began with the (very) short story Fluffy-Puffy the Cat, published by Menlo Park Elementary School circa 1963. She went on more complex topics in high school, penning pithy orations and collecting a small arsenal of public speaking awards. As a speech communication/radio journalism major at Southern Oregon University, she tackled controversial topics such as timber clear-cutting and whether or not some people are entitled to be bored by the poetry of Ezra Pound. Her public radio classical music program gathered a regular listenership while she terrorized late-night captive audiences during fund-raising marathons by interviewing celebrities like Jack Kerouac -- who had been dead for seven years. "I am," she confessed in her book Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew, "a certified windbag."

Ellen enjoyed a 22-year career in cable television, including nine years as founder and owner of her own consultancy, Third Variation Strategies LLC, before deciding to return full time to her writing. By that time she had acquired a steadfast husband of two decades, the inimitable sons she so often writes about and a constellation of experiences that, as it turns out, many people can relate to. Her work has been published on every continent (OK, not Antarctica).

To be continued...!

Thanks, Mom and Dad -- truly the wind beneath my wings