Authors Electric

  Ellis Elliott is a poet, author, and the founder of  Bewilderness Writing , a weekly online workshop where writers gather to explore the fertile wilderness of their creative subconscious through freewriting from poetry prompts. Since 2020, she has cultivated a brave and supportive community that values expression over perfection, helping participants quiet their inner critic and discover their authentic voices on the page. This year, Ellis released the first  Bewilderness Journal , showcasing the powerful, intimate work that has emerged from these sessions. I sat down with Ellis to talk about how the workshops began, what it took to grow this community, the inspiration behind the new journal, and what’s next for  Bewilderness Writing .   Dianne Pearce (Dianne):  Thanks so much for the meetup Ellis. I was lucky enough to be in one of your Bewilderness sessions, and I have always wondered w hat inspired you to start Bewilderness Writing back in 2...

  My sister is staying with me at the moment, and we went to see The Roses the other day, in the movie theater, which people don't seem to do as much, but which we especially like to do. My sister is eight years younger than me, did not go to college, but worked her way up in the field of TV production, chose to not have children, and has a long-time domestic partner because she's not into marriage. I could not wait to get married and have kids almost as much as I couldn't wait to go to college, have gotten a few degrees, in fact, I'd still like to be in college. I have one child through adoption because of infertility, and would love to have a thousand more if I had the means to do so. I put this out there, because our "takes" on life are often very different, and were very different on this film. I should also out myself and say I have a major crush on Benedict Cumberbatch since I first saw the Sherlock series. My sister does not, and she thought the Sherl...

When we write novels, we often imagine an ideal reader, someone smart, curious, and eager to dive into our worlds. But there’s an important fact many authors overlook: the  average  American adult reads at about a seventh to eighth grade level. And more than half of U.S. adults read below a sixth grade level. That doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy complex stories, but it does mean that overly dense prose or elaborate sentence structures can make a book harder to access. If you use Microsoft Word, the built-in Editor can give you a readability score based on the  Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level . This tells you the U.S. school grade needed to understand your text on first read. A score of “8” means the average eighth grader could easily follow it. You can turn this feature on in  File → Options → Proofing → Show Readability Statistics  after running a spelling and grammar check. Another measure you may hear about is the  Lexile Framework for Reading . The Lexile scor...

Old Scratch Press (OSP), a poetry and short-form collective that I started in 2022, is seeking two new members to join us starting at the end of 2025. I began the press because authors who I had published in  Instant Noodles Lit Mag  asked me to publish a book of poetry for them. But, as a small indie publisher without a university backing me, it was a big ask to publish one-author-only books of poetry, because books of poetry typically do not sell in a press-sustaining way. I run my various publishing things with my long-suffering husband Dave , and we looked at what the major costs of producing a book are, beyond our time. We decided that, to do it, we'd pay some costs, and some of the labor that had costs associated with it beyond our personal time we could avoid if a group would come together and take on the labor. Basically I went to all the authors I'd worked with in anthologies or the lit mag, and asked them, "If you could trade a little labor for a published book,...

  Ignoring Alva is a wonderful new novel by Emilie Khair.  While recovering from a mild stroke, Alva’s vivid dreams of daring exploits spark a restless desire to break free from the predictability of her quiet life. Her sister Millie—a practical yet spirited counterpart—is skeptical of Alva’s newfound boldness. But when Alva suggests an impulsive road trip, not even Millie can resist the call of adventure. What starts as a lighthearted escapade quickly spirals into a whirlwind of mischief, suspense, and unexpected heroics. As the journey unfolds, the siblings face long-buried secrets, stand up for the underdog, and confront dangerous foes with a fierceness they never knew they possessed. Through it all, Alva and Millie prove that courage, resilience, and the drive to rewrite your story aren’t confined by age—they’re only sharpened by experience. Witty, heartfelt, and brimming with surprises, Ignoring Alva is an unforgettable tale of sisterhood and reinvention. It proves that ...