About Me
I write about ballet, literature, motherhood, and feminism.
Ellen O’Connell Whittet is an essayist and continuing lecturer who teaches in the Writing Program and College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Her debut novel, Book of Hours (Dzanc), is forthcoming in 2026. Her memoir, What You Become in Flight (Melville House, 2020) was named a most-anticipated book by Refinery 29 and Chicago Review. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She co-hosts the podcast Good Moms on Paper with writers Annie Hartnett and Tessa Fontaine.
Ellen has written for Time, Vogue, Paris Review Daily, Buzzfeed, Vulture, The Atlantic, New York City Ballet, Literary Hub, Prairie Schooner, where she won the Virginia Faulkner Award, the Harper Perennial Anthology The Moment (2012), on the Ploughshares Blog, and elsewhere.
She lives with her husband and two daughters in Santa Barbara, CA. You can follow @oconnellwhittet on Instagram.