hello.

I'm Ellen. I'm an avid bookworm, a pop culture fanatic, and an Oxford comma loyalist (& an AP Style adherent where necessary). But wait–that's not where my love affair with punctuation ends! I also love the ampersand for the challenges it presents to rigid dichotomies and black-and-white thinking. I love all things arts and culture, but especially film, television, theater, and books. I am a writer, editor and multimedia storyteller with an abiding passion for language and stories.

my story.

I have known that I wanted to write and tell stories for a living practically my whole life. I particularly adore writing about the arts and culture, in academic, journalistic and communications contexts.

I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY (go Bills). I attended the University at Buffalo, where I studied English and global gender studies, and wrote my senior honors thesis on the genre subversion of the show Arrested Development.

I spent the next three years working in food service (I have worked in customer service jobs for almost 10 years), doing freelance writing and editing work for the local publication Buffalo Healthy Living Magazine.

In 2021, I began my master's program in arts journalism and communications at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications. I graduated in May 2022 and finished the program out with a capstone project covering the Spoleto festival in Charleston, South Carolina through mid-June. The program was an incredible experience which has nurtured my love for writing about the arts and culture, helped me hone my skills as a journalist, and offered countless opportunities both academic and professional. I have bylines in The Stand, Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard, Rochester's CITY Paper, CNY Magazine, Charleston City Paper, The Buffalo News, and The NewsHouse.com, SU's student-run digital publication, where I also served as a digital producer. I have a sharp eye for copyediting and deep knowledge of SEO best practices.

As a reporter for the Chautauquan Daily and for the Utica Observer-Dispatch, I honed my storytelling and organizational skills in fast-paced newsrooms with daily deadlines. I wrote for both digital and print audiences, developed my photography and social media abilities, and continued to utilize content management systems to fine-tune my proficiency in digital production.

My interests include alternative comedy, psychological horror, academia, and strong female leads, to name a few. I am forever interested in the dialogue between politics and culture, and in both the power and limits of representation.

I'm an endless fountain of recommendations. If I had to recommend only five things, though, they would be: the TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the movie Sorry to Bother You, Carly Rae Jepsen's perfect album Emotion, the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang!, and the book I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid.

Everyone has a story to tell, and I'm honored when someone lets me help them tell theirs.