Born in Belleville,
Illinois, Ellen Wittlinger lived there until leaving for college at Millikin
University in Decatur, Illinois. After completing college, she moved to Ashland,
Oregon until she was accepted into the Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University
of Iowa for her Master of Fine Arts degree. Wittlinger wanted to become a poet,
and published a book of poetry, Breakers, in 1979.
After that she spent three years living in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape
Cod, where some of her subsequent books have been set. She had two fellowship
years in Provincetown at the Fine Arts Work Center, a residential program which
nurtures young artists, and continued to write fiction, poetry, plays, and
worked for the local newspaper, The Provincetown Advocate.
Over the years Wittlinger has been a finalist four times in the Massachusetts
Artists Fellowship programs, twice in poetry, and once each in fiction and
playwriting.
It wasn't until she had two children of her own, and a job as a children's
librarian, that it occured to Wittlinger to try to write for young adults. Her
first novel, Lombardo's Law, was published in 1993 and Wittlinger has never
looked back.
Ellen
Wittlinger
Book List
