Ellen Rudd
Fáilte! (FALL-cha...Irish for Welcome)
I am Ellen Rudd. I was born in Muskegon, MI, lived much of my childhood in New Orleans, spent a small piece of time in Houston, and then arrived in Indianapolis for high school. I went to college at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, and then returned to Indianapolis for graduate school, where I met my first husband. We moved to Watertown, NY, where our first child, Meaghan, was born, and then came back to Indianapolis when she was a year old. Our second child, Mia, was born in Indianapolis, graduating from North Central High School. I live in a huge forest on top of a hill slightly southwest of Indianapolis. I share this space with 8 cats and a husband named Michael. I'm still a card carrying professional social worker; I worked with families experiencing custody and visitation disputes for more than 20 years. A mid-life career change sent me for a degree in Computer Technology in 1995 and a full-time teaching career in the university for 3 years. I'm now retired as a writer.
I bought the Webspindoctor because I taught web page design and development at the university. When I left, I thought I would start my own business working out of my house. After more than twenty years of professional technical writing, and keeping journals and diaries, writing short stories and poetry since I was nine, I re-evaluated what I would do with this time. I've wanted to write a novel since I was nine years old. I attended The Santa Barbara Writers' Conference in June 2001, which convinced me I should take a shot at this. I'm working on my favorite sort of novel, a redemption story: a story that redeems great suffering for great good.Please look at my favorite photo of my girls, Meaghan and Mia. The Irish words are literally translated My Love, My Heart, or, more informally, Love of my Heart. The story is loosely based on my experiences as Meaghan's mother, caring for a daughter with a degenerative disease of the central nervous system. While that part of the story is not happy in the conventional sense, she brings great joy to everyone who works with her, changing lives in the process.
My youngest daughter, Mia, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh as an Information Science major. You can visit her personal website for her own story and bazillion pictures. I used to teach web page design, so I taught her everything she knows. She recently moved to Sacramento, California, and will be marrying in September.