Ellen Halter

A - J

Feb 20

Ellen Halter has a PhD in rhetoric and composition from Wayne State University and has taught composition to freshmen there and at the University of Toledo. However, she's spent the last twenty-five years focusing on her own writing, both fiction and poetry. Her poems have been published in Forage Poetry and the Garfield Lake Review.

But mainly she’s a fiction writer who folds her own experiences into a plot. This novel, All That I’m Asking, is such an instance. Having grown up in New York City, she placed her main character firmly on its sidewalks. Halter’s seminal experience occurred a month before her graduation from Oberlin College in 1970 when the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of peaceful student protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and injuring others. Located sixty miles from Kent State, Oberlin invited the survivors to its campus as a refuge. They wandered around her campus as shattered as victims of war. She then realized the vulnerability of the average citizen in the face of an oppressive government’s whims. This event and the fervor of the 1960s turned her into the activist she remains.

In her debut novel, she bears witness to the decade’s turbulent grand finale. Her main character, Alice Kaplan, is her avatar, coming into her own as the decade strains towards fairness and justice for all.

Ellen lives in the midwest with her husband.

Visit her website, ellenhalter.com.