Ellen Gilchrist

Ellen Gilchrist studied at Millsaps College, University of Arkansas and Vanderbilt University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is poetry, short story and creative and professional writing. Vincent Millay are recorded as an influence. Residence is recorded at Ocean Springs. Employment is recorded with University of Arkansas. Distinctions recorded are National Book Award and National Book Award for Fiction.

• Name — Ellen Gilchrist • Born — 20 February 1935 • Birthplace — Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. • Died — 30 January 2024 • Place of death — Ocean Springs, Mississippi, U.S. • Occupation — Writer • Education — Millsaps College (BA) University of Arkansas • Period — 1979–2016 • Genre — Novel, short story, poetry • Children — 3

Ellen Louise Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on February 20, 1935. She spent part of her childhood on a plantation owned by her maternal grandparents. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and studied creative writing under renowned writer Eudora Welty at Millsaps College. Later in life, Gilchrist enrolled in the creative writing program at the University of Arkansas, where she received an MFA. Gilchrist was married and divorced four times (two with the same man) and had three children from her first and third marriages to the same man. She lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Ocean Springs, Mississippi. She was a professor of creative writing and contemporary fiction at the University of Arkansas for over 20 years. Her work was noted for its focus on culture and society in the South. Gilchrist was heard regularly as a commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition from 1984 to 1985. Her NPR commentaries have been published in her book Falling Through Space. Gilchrist died from breast cancer at home in Ocean Springs on the evening of January 30, 2024, at the age of 88. She was survived by her sons Pierre Gautier Walker, Marshall Peteet Walker Jr., and Garth Gilchrist Walker, as well as 18 grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren, and her brother Robert Alford Gilchrist.

• The Annunciation (1983) • The Anna Papers (1988) • Net of Jewels (1992) • Starcarbon: A Meditation on Love (1994) • Anabasis (1994) • Sarah Conley (1997) • A Dangerous Age (2008)

• The Land Surveyor's Daughter (poetry) (1979) • Riding out the Tropical Depression: Selected Poems, 1975-1985 (1986) • Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist (1987) • The Writing Life (2005) • Things Like the Truth: Out of My Later Years (2016)

• In the Land of Dreamy Dreams (1981) • Victory over Japan (1984) • Drunk with Love (1986) • Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle (1989) • I Cannot Get You Close Enough: Three Novellas (1990) • The Age of Miracles (1995) • Rhoda (1995) • The Courts of Love (1996) • Flights of Angels (1998) • The Cabal (2000) • Collected Stories (2000) • I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting With My Daddy (2002) • Nora Jane: A Life in Stories (2005) • Acts of God (2014)