Awards for
Into the Attic:
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Silver Medal, 2023 Nautilus Book Awards (Fiction, large press)
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Second Place Winner, 2023 PenCraft Book Awards (Paranormal Fiction)
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Distinguished Favorite, 2023 NYC Big Book Award (General Fiction)
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Finalist, 17th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards (New Fiction)
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Finalist, 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards (General Fiction)
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Finalist, 2022 Chanticleer International Book Awards (Literary & Contemporary Fiction)
"An often haunting story about
memory and loss."
– Kirkus Reviews
As writer Caroline Crane confronts her past amidst the mountains of boxes in her attic, the ghosts of her parents and first husband appear. They had died in a car accident nearly twenty years earlier when her two children were small.
Caroline has many things she wants to tell the ghosts, but they have come with strong opinions and stunning revelations. And it is the night before Thanksgiving, which Caroline and her second husband are hosting. Soon the guests will arrive: her children, other family, and friends.
Everyone’s life is about to change.
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"Ellen Sherman hits her stride: Into the Attic is compelling, evocative, memorable."
—Tom Hitchcock, author of Girl in the Painting and DROWNING
“Artfully blending the surreal with everyday life, the author explores the delicate, ever-shifting balance between remembering and forgetting, holding on and letting go.”
—Jane Schwartz, author of Caught and Ruffian: Burning from the Start
Also by Ellen Sherman
The 1970s come alive in this moving and quirky novel about a sheltered young woman thrust into a world of holdups, tragedy, and corruption. Although fearful by nature, rookie reporter Nora Plowright pursues a tip from a stranger and is soon investigating shady dealings at the Maryland State Highway Authority. The developing scandal tests both her budding reportorial skills and her appetite for danger. Also, her passion for storytelling makes it increasingly difficult for her to stick to the facts.
Honest and humorous, Just the Facts is a coming-of-age novel about finding one’s way in the real world that will resonate with anyone who has struggled to figure out what to do when they grow up.
Awards for Just the Facts:
Finalist, 2016 International Book Awards (Fiction: General)
Finalist, 2016 National Indie Excellence Awards (Fiction - General)
Finalist, 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards (General Fiction and Second Novel)
Finalist, 2015 USA Best Book Awards (Women's Lit)
Ivy Robbins is a happily married cartoonist who has never particularly wanted children. When her older sister dies suddenly, Ivy has to deal with her own grief as well as that of her sister’s two small boys, who have been left in her care. On top of this, she has a nagging suspicion that there is more to her sister’s death than was originally believed. Her quest to find out what really happened leads to several surprising discoveries, but ultimately Ivy must come to terms with the haunting, unexpected truth.
A Play
Play with My Novel
A serious comedy
Play with My Novel is about a pleasant, well-intentioned author invited to a book club hosted by a woman she had met only once before and briefly. From the moment she arrives, her expectations of an evening full of engaged, meaningful discussion are thwarted, and it becomes increasingly clear that most of the club’s members not only disliked her book, but also dislike each other.
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A staged reading was performed in Hoboken, NJ in February 2018.
About
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
-- Thomas Mann
I write, therefore I am.
It’s true. From an early age, I have turned to writing to figure out what I’m thinking and feeling, as a way of recording minor observations as well as epiphanies. In eleventh grade, a class called “Literary Existentialism” changed me forever as I read numerous books highlighting the absurdity of life, with characters trying to forge their way despite various, often random, struggles. Perhaps this is why I am drawn to the absurd, ironic, and tragic-comic.
I took 23 English courses as an undergraduate at Trinity College, which is absurd in itself. Later, I received my MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I have worked as a journalist, teacher, editor, and training coordinator for volunteer literacy tutors.
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