Ellen Meeropol's Blog

Every year I tell myself not to bother with this list. There are so many "best books" out there. But reading is one of life's most delicious pleasures, and I can't help myself. These are the books that I loved, cried over, despaired over, and still think about in 2024. I'd love to know what you think....

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
This novel is not for the faint of heart. It is one of the most brutal, most terrifying, and most important books I've ever read. I could only read a few pages at a...

Conference Update: New Keynote & Award Winner
 
WriteAngles conference has a new keynote speaker! We are delighted to welcome Shanta Lee to the conference, where she will accept the Abel Meeropol Social Justice Writing Award and give the keynote address.
 
Shanta Lee is an award-winning writer across genres and visual artist. She was the 2020 recipient of the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts and a gubernatorial appointee to the Vermont Humanities Council Board of Directors....

In the spring of 2022, the group of volunteers who ran WriteAngles, the long-running and beloved western Massachusetts writers conference, finally admitted that we were not able to continue. Between the COVID pandemic and the death of our long-time conference coordinator, Daisy Mathias, we had lost momentum. But the conference was worth saving; maybe we could find another organization to take it over. As part of the WriteAngles Inc planning group and a member of the Straw Dog Writers Guild steer...

I wasn't planning to write a favorite books blog this year. Too busy with other projects. But when my friend Sarah asked about it, wanting suggestions for winter reading, I decided to look back at the books I loved this past year. I'd love to hear what your favorites were.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride
McBride's latest novel is big and messy. Set in the 1920s and 1930s in Pottstown, Pa, his characters are mostly immigrants—eastern European Jews and southern Blacks—who live...

Every year, I review the books I've read, those I can remember, and enjoy them again in the memory. Here are my favorite reads from 2022.
 
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel
Not quite as brilliant as Station Eleven, but pretty fantastic. This story unrolls in three different time periods, continuing Mandel's exploration of the big themes of time, pandemic, and living through catastrophe. I'm in awe of this author's world-building imagination.
 
The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
Reading Egan'...

Late every fall I try to think back over the books I've read that year and share the ones I've loved most, the ones that have stayed with me, changed me. This year was particularly difficult, with such an amazing group of titles published. Books that dig deep into the world and offer something new, something inspiring. Here are the ones that have stayed with me the most.
 
Horodno Burning by Michael Freed-Thall
Early in this novel, we meet a girl who loves to read and a boy who loves stories but ca...

I'm easily bored.
 
That might be why, over the course of almost 60 years of adult working life, I have held positions ranging from switchboard operator to art teacher, from early childhood educator to abortion counselor, from nurse practitioner to novelist. I like learning new skills, taking on challenges, pivoting from one career to another as part of embracing the seasons of life.
 
When I started seriously writing fiction 21 years ago, and especially when my first novel was published ten years a...

What a year 2020 has been! The silver lining (of the horrors of COVID and the ugly polarization of national politics and the sadness of isolation from family and community) has been reading. What a lot of good books have been published into these challenging times. These are my favorite reads (although it's certainly possible I've forgotten and left off a few stellar ones) to share for your reading pleasure.
 
Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam
The Gringa, by Andrew Altschul
The Sun...

Her Sister's Tattoo is three months old today. What a roller-coaster trip it has been, launching a novel into a pandemic followed by massive protests and an impressive rebirth of resistance to racism and economic injustice.
 
I have felt such a stew of emotions in these three long/short months: fear about COVID, fury at the mismanagement of our country's response, disappointment at not being able to tour with my book, anger at the increasing militarization of police response to demonstrators, sor...

We're all terrified about what Covid-19 means for our communities, our loved ones. If we're not frightened, we should be. Many of us are self-isolating, working remotely, not visiting friends and family except virtually. We're washing our hands often, trying not to touch our faces, attempting to balance our reading about the virus to learn what we need to know with ignoring it, so we don't descend into despair or panic.
 
In the midst of all of this, my new novel, Her Sister's Tattoo is being...