Hello and welcome to the homepage of Jeffrey Ellis!
I am a writer, actor, director, film buff, performance artist, activist, and occasional student based in Denton, Texas.
This page is still under heavy construction so please be kind and forgiving.
Soon, I hope to post a few of my stories, some of my poetry, as well as information about Denton's very own Underground Theatre (of which I am currently President) as well as my business JtD Publications and Jack the Daw, the literary zine we put out every couple of years.
Though I dabble in many things, I consider myself to be primarily a writer. When I was a kid, I spoke with a terrible stutter. I also had prematurely bad eyesight and absolutely no athletic ability. As you can probably already guess, I was the most popular person at my high school. Anyway, I started writing because that was my only way to be able to communicate my thoughts without having them tossed back in my face with some cruel mockery added on.
I don't stutter anymore. In fact, I have an apartment full of trophies that I've won as a member of various Speech and Debate teams. However, I still love writing. To this date (July 1998) over 100 of my short stories and poems have appeared in small press publications across America. I have put out two chapbooks, Respect for the Dead of Denver (1995) and Display Copy Only (1996) through JtD Publications. I have also had the following plays produced by the Underground Theatre: Cathy's Choice, Closet Cases, The Credit Card Marxist (a one-man show), Death and Darkness at the Amarillo Station, The Importance of Fifty Cents, Magic Ameriqua, Magic Ameriqua II: Drinking for Two, The Most Powerful Man In the World, and Sinatra's Dead.
I've completed first drafts of two novels -- The Journey of Frank Walker and Days God Went Mad -- and I am now at work on a third called Drinking with Strangers. Drinking with Strangers deals with a 24 year-old, formerly pathologically shy writer who helps to start a theater company in a small Texas town. Is it autobiographical? Where could any one have possibly gotten that idea?
On a serious (and I'm sorry to say sappy) note I would be no where if not for my friends.
Therefore, let me quickly thank Jay Saenz, Tony Hawkins, Kim Kjome, Keith Miller, Dean Hall, Randal Milholland, Steve Fieler, Zach Eichelberger, Wendy Weir, Erin Tucker, Jackie Blair, Damien Harris, Brooke Noble, Monica Young, Anna Barie, Christopher Blaise, and all the other past and future members of the Underground Theatre. (I'll get around to naming all of you soon enough!)
JtD Publications couldn't exist without contributions from Jonathan Bell, J. Lea Weaver, Joseph Stanco, Evangeline Mercury, Sam Cucchiara, Chuck Jones, Gail Shrader, and Lisa Herrington Pritchard.
And lastly (and most importantly) allow me to thank my best friend, my inspiration, and the closest thing this only child has ever had to an older sister -- August Jordan Freid. If not for her encouragement and patience, I don't know where I'd be right now. August is in England right now and if you're looking at this page, know that I'm missing your friendship and I wish you all the happiness in the world.
