Archive - February 1, 2015

ELLEN URBANI (Guatemala 1991-93) is the author of the Peace Corps memoir When I Was Elena (The Permanent Press, 2006), a Book Sense Notable selection documenting her life in Guatemala during the final years of that country’s civil war. She will publish in August, Landfall, a work of historical fiction set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Her autobiographical essays and short stories have appeared in a variety of bestselling pop-culture anthologies such as Chocolate for a Woman’s Heart. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama, and following the Peace Corps, she earned a master’s degree in art therapy from Maryhurst University, specializing in illness/trauma survival. Her work in this field was the subject of a short documentary, “Paint Me a Future,” which won the Juror’s Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2000, qualifying it for Oscar consideration. Ellen is considered an expert on . . .