what's up. elle nash (that's me!) is the author of the short story collection, Nudes (SF/LD Books) and the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in the 2018 June Reading Room of Oprah Magazine and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a 'complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.' her third book, Gag Reflex, is coming out from CLASH Books this summer.

press play on my iPod babez:

some praise for NUDES:

On Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021

"Elle Nash has always been good at mapping the particulars of unspoken desire"
-Lit Hub

"Relentlessly, whether the scene is a suburban home or an urban sex club, the aura of existential threat is borne."
-Entropy Magazine

"Nash has modeled a portrayal of people operating on fringes of society."
-Publisher's Weekly

My short stories and essays appear in Guernica, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, The Fanzine, Volume 1 Brooklyn, New York Tyrant and elsewhere.

I am a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine and a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp.

My writing and teaching experience is a culmination of learning under Tom Spanbauer, the creator of the Dangerous Writing workshop in Portland, Oregon, for about two years as I completed my first novel, Animals Eat Each Other.

Dangerous Writing was created in the 90s by Tom Spanbauer and Peter Christopher after they worked with Gordon Lish. I once interviewed Gordon Lish here, and Lish's son, Atticus, here.

I follow along in Tom's teaching philosophy that good writing has a feel to it and it's imperative to create a space that feels safe, within the self or workshop, for the writer to unfurl their most vulnerable, heartbreaking work.

I have also learned from Lidia Yuknavitch, Blake Butler, Steve Almond, Ben Fama, Chloe Caldwell and Claire Vaye Watkins, whose work has informed me about structure, pacing and prose.

My teaching and mentoring encompasses both traditional explanations of various writing 'rules,' the rational behind them, deconstructing them, discussing points where they might not work (such as in changing atmosphere and tone), as well as encouraging and discussing how to develop the positive self-talk needed to complete short or long range projects.

You can find out more about how to work with me by emailing me or checking out my annual workshop, TEXTURES.