Elle Hill

Yeah, that's right -- I was all over the OK Corral in AZ. Oh, faithful three readers, I have fallen prey to a terrible malady. It all began when I took a break from writing my latest novel to travel to Florida and then through Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. (Yes, I feel very cosmopolitan.) During this time, most of it sans Internet access (my IUD was almost incapacitating), I eagerly slurped up a dozen or so e-novels by my favorite authors. When I returned home in early January from this whirlwind winter break, a new semester quaked and the tsunami of class preparation slammed into my tender person. Now, three weeks later, I find myself with some free time and could easily slide back to writing The Tithe . Only... Only... I can’t. I reread the last chapter or so. I tinkered with an adjective here, a metaphor there. I got into the writerly swing of things by revising another book. But come time to jump back into The Tithe , I found myself cowed by the magnitude, th...

My homemade cover, which I'm sure will look nothing like the publisher's Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh! I just received in my email inbox the first round of revisions to Hunted Dreams , the latest installment in my Hunted Series. I have a special fondness for this book, not only because the main character is a strong, self-rescuing fat woman (yeah!), but because I really started stretching my creative muscles when penning this book. The shero, who remains unnamed for the first part of the book, is trapped in an endless cycle of nightmares, which adds a surreal, dark, grisly touch. I admit I was thrilled and challenged when writing scenes in which she’s trapped in an L.A. alleyway, the Pacific Ocean, dinner parties (my personal hell), a giant Venus flytrap-like plant, and, of course, hell. And, my faithful three readers, a character from Hunted Past plays a significant role in this Hunted book. Plus, the hero is seriously hot. Just sayin’. My glorious editor at...

As a sociologist specializing in social inequalities, I constantly ponder the politics of representation in my writing. For whom am I empowered or entitled to speak? I’m committed to representing a world that looks a lot like the one in which I live. To that end, I want to feature in my stories women and men of color, non-straight folks, people of differing appearances and body sizes, and individuals with varying abilities, but can I? Should I? Because of all this, my current literary project is kicking my booty. For some reason that I’m pretty sure borders on masochism, I decided this summer to pen a science fiction/fantasy/romance novel that focuses on the interactions of my world’s social outcasts, who just happen to be people with disabilities. I’m 40 thousand words into my novel, and although I’m in profound love with my characters, I also write the words with a burden of deep unease. A way cool image I found at www.dudeimanaspie.com. "Aspie," btw, refers to...

LOVE VAMPIRES? WANT TO BE A LIFE-SAVING SUPER-S/HERO? DESPERATE TO FEEL SMUG ABOUT SAID LIFESAVING? LIKE TO ACCESSORIZE WITH PRETTY COLORS? Then do I have a proposition for you: DONATE BLOOD. Seriously. Donating blood turns ordinary folks into life-saving super-s/heroes, it takes as little as a half-hour, and there’s just something so gothalicious about saving lives while watching the red stuff flow. Vampire lovers of the world, let’s be honest: A human walking toward us with a syringe in their hand and a gleam in their eyes is the closest we will ever really come to the erotic, soul-stealing kiss of a vampire. Grab it while you can. And hey, I have it on good authority that donating blood hurts a lot less than having two humanoid fangs pierce your jugular. Plus, donating blood also earns you the coolest accessory known to modern civilization: the colored bandage. Let’s take me, for example. I happen to super-duper like pink. (Think, like, eight-year-old, middle...

The veil grows thin between our worlds. A time of soul-chilling horror draws nigh. We can avert our eyes, we can ignore the terror turning our bones into icicles. Yet the reality remains. I refer, of course, to the agony of Halloween parties. Okay, maybe the prospects of costumes and crowds and socializing don’t shamble menacingly through your noggin like freshly-animated, flesh-craving cadavers. Nonetheless, for other authors who, like me, have mummified themselves in denial only to find Halloween soirees have snuck up behind them, below I humbly submit a few literature-inspired costume ideas. 1. Your book . Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean you have to stop shamelessly promoting yourself! This can be as easy as two pieces of cardstock or cardboard slung over your shoulders like a sandwich board. The front, of course, mirrors one of your books’ covers. 2. A character from one of your novels or novellas. For me, for example, I could don some jeans, a black sh...

Do you have a vroom-vroom? No? Guess you're not as cool as sociologists. The term “sociological imagination” (SI) comes from C. Wright Mills’ 1959 book by the same name. “Sociological imagination” is, essentially, locating personal issues within their social contexts in order to further analyze them. Sociologists frequently reference Mills and the SI, not only because the concept encourages us to engage more critically with our social and cultural worlds but because Mills rode a motorcycle and made nerdy sociologists look slightly cooler. Sounds fun, right? (The SI, not the motorcycle.) Here’s the snag: We live in the U.S., which is an incredibly individualistic nation. Individual freedoms? Personal determinism? Emphasizing the rights of individuals above those of the masses? Tic, tac, and toe! As a result, we tend to address our social worlds solely in terms of individual rights and choices. If someone is in dire straits, it must be because they screwed up, right? Wh...

The fatosphere lit up like a dynamite-encrusted birthday cake last week when a CBS anchor, Jennifer Livingston, addressed on air a man who wrote her a letter chastising her for setting a bad example for viewers. Her transgression? Being too fat. Her on-air response was intimate, eloquent, and powerful. She spoke of the pain his message had caused her and urged other victims of bullying to honor their own strength and worth. Shortly thereafter, Ragen Chastain, of Dances with Fat acclaim, started the Better than the Bullies Campaign , which includes videos and letters from victims of weight bullying to their victimizers. As she writes on the site, “ We are standing up, we are fighting back, we are better than the bullies . ” Like most fat kids, I was bullied during my school years. Because I support Ragen, because this is National Anti-Bullying Month, and because I kinda like me and feel somewhat eager to share the good feelings, I made my own video. My eternal thanks to Kris...