Ellen O'Connell Whittet

Ellen O’Connell Whittet is an essayist and lecturer who teaches in the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara. Her memoir about coming of age in ballet, What You Become in Flight, was published by Melville House in 2020. Whittet has written for The Paris Review, Buzzfeed, Vulture, The Atlantic, New York City Ballet, Allure, Teen Vogue, The Rumpus, Lenny Letter, Bustle, Catapult, Literary Hub, Salon, Post Road, Prairie Schooner, where she won the Virginia Faulkner Award, Redivider, The Nashville Review, the Harper Perennial Anthology The Moment (2012), and on the Ploughshares Blog. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.