Ellen Urbani is the author of Landfall, a novel set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the memoir When I Was Elena which documents her life in Guatemala where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer during the final years of that country’s civil war. Her personal essays have been published in The New York Times, TIME magazine, and numerous anthologies. She has a bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama, a master’s degree from Marylhurst University, and trained in the oncology program at OHSU. Before leaving the medical field to write books, Ellen’s work spanned the fields of oncology counseling and federal disaster/trauma response; her work is profiled in the short documentary film Paint Me a Future, which qualified for Academy Award consideration. Having spent her formative years in Virginia and Alabama, Ellen’s a Southerner at heart, though she currently lives on a working farm in Oregon with her husband, two children, and a passel of barnyard pets.