Ellen Wayland-Smith is associate professor of Writing at USC Dornsife College. She is the author of Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table (Picador, 2016) and The Angel in the Marketplace: Adwoman Jean Wade Rindlaub and the Selling of America (UChicago Press, 2020).
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
Of Grace and Pain: On Ashley C. Ford’s “Somebody’s Daughter”
Ellen Wayland-Smith explores Ashley C. Ford’s “Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir.”...
Black Childhood as Idyll: On Vivian Gibson’s “The Last Children of Mill Creek”
Ellen Wayland-Smith reviews Vivian Gibson’s memoir of growing up in St. Louis....
The Utopian Turn in YA Lit
A new YA novel reimagines utopia in the era of climate catastrophe....
East of Eden: On Rachel Monroe’s “Savage Appetites”
Ellen Wayland-Smith reviews Rachel Monroe’s “Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession.”...
Treasures on Earth and in Heaven: On Briallen Hopper’s “Hard to Love”
Ellen Wayland-Smith reviews Briallen Hopper’s new essay collection, “Hard to Love.”...
(Again?) Again: Reading Leslie Jamison’s “The Recovering”
Ellen Wayland-Smith follows the narrative weave of Leslie Jamison’s memoir, “The Recovering.”...
The Alchemy of Pain: Melissa Febos’s “Abandon Me”
Ellen Wayland-Smith on Melissa Febos’s “Abandon Me.”...
Imaginary Children: “The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood”
Ellen Wayland-Smith on Belle Boggs's "The Art of Waiting."...
Oneida: The Christian Utopia Where Contraception Was King
Ellen Wayland-Smith examines her ancestors' history in the Oneida Community, a 19th-century religious commune....
