About Ellen

From Jersey Girl to California Woman (with a dose of Paris in between).

Ellen's new novel, French Lessons, will be published by Ballantine in 2011.

Ellen Sussman's Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex, was published to critical acclaim by Bloomsbury in June 2008. Her anthology, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, a collection of literary essays by 26 women writers, was published by W.W. Norton in July, 2007 and became a New York Times Editors Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller. She is the author of the novel, On a Night Like This, (Warner Books, 2004) also a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller. It has been translated into six languages and became a best seller in France. She has published numerous essays in anthologies, including The Other Woman (Grand Central Publishing, June 2007) and a dozen of her short stories have appeared in literary and commercial magazines. Ellen has been awarded fellowships from the Ledig House, Ucross, Ragdale Foundation, Writers at Work, Wesleyan Writers Conference and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Ellen was born in Trenton, New Jersey. She studied English at Tufts University where she was awarded the Mabel Daniel Prize for the most distinguished student in the arts. She won a teaching fellowship and earned a Masters in Writing at Johns Hopkins University, studying with John Barth, and writing a collection of short stories as her thesis.

Ellen taught writing and literature as an adjunct faculty member at Pepperdine University, UCLA, and Rutgers University. She lived in Paris for five years and taught fiction writing at WICE, a cultural center for adults. She moved to Northern California in 1993 and now teaches at Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes. She lectures regularly on writing and the creative process at conferences and seminars. Ellen has two daughters and lives in the Bay Area with her husband.