SALT LAKE CITY, July 6, 2019
Ellen Black
Every so often, a manuscript comes through WiDo Publishing’s™ submission email that nobody can put down. Ellen Black’s submission about growing up in a religious cult was one such manuscript. Everyone who reviewed it couldn’t stop reading until they got to the very end.
Ellen Black was born in 1959, in a small East-Texas town, to parents who were members of the cult, The Worldwide Church of God, run by Herbert W. Armstrong.
Black states: “Armstrong’s teachings included that he was the modern-day prophet of God and that God has revealed all to him, that his people had to tithe 30%, not the standard 10% asked by other religions, that Jews got the date wrong for Passover, that women were not to be trusted (remember Eve)– that all children had the Devil in them, and that Black people would not make it into Heaven during the second coming of Christ due to the small size of their brains.”
Despite the constant beatings from her father, and the emotional abuse suffered at the hands of both of her parents, Black lucked out as a freshman in high school, when the cult closed their school for the children of the followers and she had to go to a public school, where she shone. Her senior year in high school, she started winning local scholarships. Her parents were so enamored of the good will their daughter’s acknowledgements brought them, they agreed to let her go to college.
She attended St. Edward’s University, “where I was able to manifest a plan I’d had since age 12, of moving to New York City. And that’s just what I did, with $40 in my pocket and first and last months’ rent paid on an apartment in Queens.”
While in New York, Black stumbled into the field of technical writing, had her daughter, Amanda, and found the courage to attend the New School, where she took classes in poetry and creative writing. She continued writing poetry and when work took her to Dallas, she joined the Dallas Poets’ Community and read at various venues.
While her daughter was in college, Black started writing her memoir, all the while growing her career. It eventually took her to Phoenix, where she manages a team of engineers and tech writers in an IT department for a university, while her daughter is getting a double master’s in Counseling and Art Therapy.
The author spent decades in horrific pain because of the abuse suffered from her parents and the cult. She kept her pain hidden from everyone, including her daughter. When her daughter left for college, Ellen started writing. Several years in, she was referred to a NYC editor.
“After working with her, I pitched a literary agent at the Willamette Writers Conference,” Ellen recalls. “The agent loved my pitch, but after reading the memoir, asked if I’d be willing to work with another editor, which I did. Then the agent disappeared, so I started querying to various lit agents and publishers, trying to find a home for my memoir.”
Ellen had a friend in Austin, Shaila Abdullah, who is a wonderful author (Saffron Dreams, and more), but who also builds websites and helps people self-publish. “I recently contacted Shaila to see if she could help me self-publish,” states Ellen, “and she asked me to keep querying for a few months. She also sent me a list of smaller publishing houses and specifically recommended WiDo, who had published her cousin. So, I queried and WiDo wrote back with a Yes!
Black would still like to publish a book of poetry and has two ideas for other books: one fiction, one non-fiction. The non-fiction book would be about others who’ve experienced horror through cults. She says, “When I let a few people read early drafts, so many came back to me saying they had a friend or relative who got caught up in bad experiences and thought their stories needed to be told, as well. I agree, and would love to do this.”
The author has no set writing habit at the moment. “The only time I ever wrote regularly was while Amanda was in college, and I wrote the first draft of my memoir. Now, I find snatches and moments at work to write, or I jot stuff down on paper until I can get home and pull out my laptop.”
Black enjoys reading different genres of books, from memoirs and autobiographies, to historical works, to mysteries, and sci-fi/fantasy. “I find myself drawn more to women writers, and adore all of Alice Hoffman’s books and am a big fan of the book, The Thirteenth Tale,” she says. “I also read political books, but when I want to fall in love with words, I find an interesting book by a woman author.”
Besides writing and reading, Black enjoys spending time with her daughter, rescuing cats (“with my daughter”), Tarot, reading, writing, TV, movies, music, dance, and spiritual/internal growth.
Ellen Black’s poetry has been published in the Timberline Review, Triadæ Magazine, Crack the Spine, Crannóg magazine, South Ash Press, Illya’s Honey, The Smoking Poet, ¡Tex!, and Eclectic Flash. In 2005, Ellen won first prize in a poetry contest sponsored by a Dallas-area library, and in 2009, Ellen was one of the Pat Conroy “South of Broad” essay contest winners.
That same year, www.killingthebuddha.com published a first-person narrative, “Heathen Color,” which provides a glimpse into a day of five-year-old Ellen’s life, as she survives the religious cult into which she was born, and how her longing for a forbidden item—lipstick—resulted in a tiny moment of crime.
In 2017, 101Words published a flash fiction piece written by Ellen. In 2015, Ellen won the Willamette Writers Paulann Petersen Prize for Poetry, and this year, she won both First and Second Prize in the 2016 Women Inspirational Poetry contest. Ellen was then asked to blog for the WIPC, which she did for a year. Now you can read Ellen’s blogs at her own website: www.EllenBlackWriter.com.