Ellen Murray is a writer, photographer, and performance researcher. An unenthusiastic member of the dead-Dad club, Ellen’s travel writing and creative nonfiction celebrate place-based narratives and traverse themes of trauma and grief.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, where she studied theater and dance, Ellen completed her certificate in creative writing through the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension. She was a 2022 semifinalist for the Allegra Johnson Prize in Memoir and Novel Writing.

Recently, she crossed the Pacific and now lives in the Hobbit-filled green hills of Dunedin, New Zealand with her two cats, Raisin Bran and Apricot. Ellen is a PhD student and Fulbright semifinalist studying magical realism and trauma narratives in performance. Utilizing her theater and performance background, Ellen aspires toward deconstructed stories and speculative forms.

Ellen is currently working on an essay collection, a nontraditional daughter’s memoir formed by the absence of a father. You can find her writing somewhere spectacularly beautiful with an oat milk latte.