Elizabeth Ellen: On the New Proliferation of Horny and Unhinged Female Narrators, The Pleasures of Mentoring Women Writers, and Drawing Inspiration for Her New Novel ‘American Thighs’
The immensely talented and luminescent Elizabeth Ellen came into my life one summer morning in 2021 when she sent me a warm and enthusiastic acceptance for my very first published piece, a Fucked Up Modern Love essay for Hobart. That acceptance email was the beginning of a correspondence—via email, text, visits to the Midwest—that has continued without pause over the past four years. Elizabeth has been responsible for launching and fostering the careers of an insane amount of writers and I’m so lucky to count myself amongst them.
On January 28th, we get blessed with the arrival of American Thighs (CLASH, 2025), Elizabeth’s newest novel, the razor-sharp, hilarious, and twisted story of Tatum Grant, a former child star and now thirty-one-year-old mother who steals her daughter’s identity so she can go back and experience high school for the first time. It’s nearly four hundred pages but I inhaled it in one gulp.
Elizabeth and I continued our years-long email thread with this interview, where we chatted about sex scenes, writing routines, and where she drew inspiration for American Thighs. '
Barrie Miskin: We’ve been seeing a lot of the ‘Unhinged Woman’ trope in literature this year. There have been Unhinged Woman sections at bookstores, Unhinged Woman panels at literary festivals, etc. What are your thoughts on this new trend?
Elizabeth Ellen: Ummm…mixed. I was recently in a bookstore with that sign and books under it. I don’t know, … on the one hand it seems funny and vaguely interesting. On the other, … kind of annoying and misogynistic. Back in the “chick lit” realm. Not to be taken too seriously (meaning, women as serious artists/writers). I also, tbh, have found myself justifying unhealthy behavior irl as something I can write about as part of this unhinged female narrative. I guess it’s something to be mindful of in how we promote ourselves, view ourselves, what we write about, and the potential for exploitation and lack of seriousness and respect for ourselves and others.
BM: When did you write American Thighs? How many iterations of the book have there been before we get to hold it in our hands later this month?
EE: I think I wrote it in 2014? Somewhere around there. I remember it was winter and I had the 90 Day Novel, as I had heard Ottessa used it to write Eileen (not sure if that’s true). I think Aaron (Burch) and I or another writer and I had decided to spend ninety days doing it “together”? It was just going to be FUN. First and foremost. Rather than tedious or self-important. As much of literary writing can be. I was looking to entertain myself and Aaron in writing it. And I think I reached that goal. Lol.
BM: I’ve often described American Thighs as “horny.” Was it fun to write sex scenes? What was that process like for you? I feel like AT has the most sex out of any book you’ve written. You’re really good at it!
EE: Haha. I was saying to someone the other day that we need more words for “horny.” It feels like such an adolescent boy word. We have tons of words for vomit and drunk. Why only one, really, for horny?? Yes, as stated above, fun was the objective! I don’t know if the sex scenes are “good writing,” but they were fun to write and hopefully they are entertaining to read. Even if “bad writing.” I think someone in a Goodreads review said it was TOO titillating. Lol. That's funny (to me).
BM: I’ve also often described AT as having a sort of twisted warmth. You can tell you really love your characters. I’ve often described you as having a sort of twisted warmth, too (just kidding, you are warm warm!). But seriously, you are very maternal. Not only towards your characters and of course your daughter, but you have a whole stable of women writers (myself included) that you’ve lovingly, generously shepherded along through various stages of their careers. Why do you think this is, that you commit so much of yourself to this service?
EE: Awwww, thank you for saying that. I’m happy warmth came through in the characters and writing of the characters. I don’t know why we each have the personalities or tendencies we do. I have just always been very maternal. Maybe in having someone to care for I feel cared for? Is that a riddle? Recently—four months ago—I stopped drinking and did the ninety AA meetings in ninety days. Something I learned, that seems obvious, is that recovery and happiness both benefit greatly from community and also from giving back. I have struggled as we all have in recent years with depression, and the one thing I can always look to to help with my depression is sort of mentoring other writers and helping them with their writing. I love editing other people’s writing. Helping shape it with them. And the friendships that often develop in doing so. It gets me/you out of my/your head when you’re helping someone else or caring for someone else. I was never happier than the years my daughter was a child, living with me. It's been a struggle since she became an adult and left home for me to sort of find my place in the world again without her physically with me. I love working especially with female writers probably, in part, because I miss my daughter. It also may be a way to love myself. I was sort of raised to believe men were everything; without a man present, life was boring. I really was raised that way. (I only recently became conscious of this sad truth.) To be “one of the boys.” That was the ultimate goal. And in the last few years I have leaned into surrounding myself with women and leaning into my relationships with other women for support and comfort and affection. My friendship with you, for instance, that built out of you submitting a fucked up love essay to me and sixty-nine emails later (in that initial thread): we were close friends! How lucky am I?! To have this opportunity to meet so many writers, so many women, and consider many of them my friends.
As for the characters in American Thighs, I love them. All of them. Even Cam. Lol. Even, maybe especially, the asshole. He’s struggling like we all are. The assholes (in life) are probably struggling the most [waving flag].
BM: American Thighs is (I think) the first book of yours being published with a publishing house that isn’t Short Flight/Long Drive. How has that new experience been?
EE: It’s been great. A total lack of control! Ha. But I mean that sincerely. It being great. CLASH being great. I am very grateful to CLASH for taking this book and putting it out in the world. Very grateful!! I was also grateful NOT to have control over that aspect of it for once.
For the record, my very first book, chapbook—Before You She Was a Pitbull—came out with Future Tense. Very grateful to Kevin Sampsell for making that happen. Kevin actually launched many writers’ careers. Mine. Chloe [Caldwell]’s. Chelsea Hodson’s. Many others. Many, many, many others.
Oh, and my poetry book, Estranged, came out with Far West a couple years ago, and they were great to work with too.
BM: What’s your writing routine? Also what’s your beauty routine? How are you at once so gorgeous and also so talented and prolific? Do you take supplements?
EE: Writing routine is to start a new poem at the bottom of every cycle with my third ex-husband while still sobbing and blowing my nose. Beauty routine is hot water followed by cold water (on my face every morning). Thank you, though, for saying so. I joked on X you had me confused with Allie Rowbottom (whom I admire greatly).
BM: When did the idea for AT first come to you? How did Tatum begin to crystallize as a character in your mind?
EE: The idea stemmed from a news story I saw many years ago about a woman in her early thirties stealing her daughter’s identity and entering high school as a fifteen year old because she’d “never had a childhood,” never had the normal high school experiences since she’d gotten pregnant as a teenager and had to drop out. She tried out for cheerleading, made the team, went to parties, and was only “found out” when her check for her cheering costume bounced.
I was also at the same time very interested in child actors. Like Drew Barrymore. Who were emancipated in their teens. Around age fifteen, usually. How that impacted them later in life, as adults. Sort of a parallel there, between the pregnant teenager having to become an “adult” very quickly and the successful child actor becoming an “adult,” at least in the eyes of the law and in that they can take care of themselves financially at a young age.
And then what does this mean? As far as what is an “adult” and what is a “child” and what, then, really, is a teenager? Historically, there was child and there was adult and when you went through puberty and were capable of being a parent you were no longer a child. Only in recent years has this idea of teenager, something between child and adult, evolved. And in very recent years this has sort of extended way beyond eighteen into early to mid twenties, even. The viewing of someone, say, nineteen as a child.
Anyway, I’m very interested in all of this from all the various views: biological, social, psychological, historical, etcetera, some of which is explored in American Thighs.
BM: AT is wholly original, but were there any books you kept by your side while you were writing? After I reread AT this past summer, I went on a Tom Perotta binge. Where are Tom Perotta and all those awesome male authors of the early aughts? Did they all get cancelled?
EE: I read Election many many years ago. I can’t remember if that book was near me when writing American Thighs. I think I had Bully (by Jim Schutze) on my desk. Both the movie and the book. Trying to remember what else…Drew Barrymore’s memoir, Little Girl Lost, from her teen years. Brooke Shields’ book, On Your Own, from her teen years. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the book, not the movie. Written by Cameron Crowe. He went “undercover” at a high school in his early twenties, even went on some dates and made out with one or more of the students!
I don't know where the male authors are. I think Tom Perotta put out a follow up of sorts to Election a year or two ago. Where is Nick Hornby? Rick Moody? But also, Helen Fielding. I think the question more for me is where are the humorous novels? Like High Fidelity, like Election, like Bridget Jones’s Diary. I just picked up Bunny. And Big Swiss. Both of which are supposed to be funny?
BM: How will you celebrate the release of AT? Will we get to see you on tour?
EE: Hmmmm. Good question. I don’t know. Does anyone want to have me? Email me: ee at hobartpulp dot com. Even/especially, maybe, if you’re not in a “big city.” Open to coming to your town!
BM: It’s January. How are you feeling? Any resolutions for the new year?
EE: Like shit! Resolutions: not to feel like shit. Also, to write. Which (not writing) is prob why I’ve felt, lately, like shit. Excited to start my new novel Surveillance this week. Fuck 2024. 2024 can BURN IN HELL, Barrie! XOXO TY, Lovey.
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Elizabeth Ellen is the author of many books including Person/a, Fast Machine, and her new novel American Thighs (Clash Books, 2025). She is the editor of Hobart and the founder of SF/LD books. A couple years ago she had a short story in Harper’s.
