Louise Ells

Writer | Reader | Educator

Louise Ells is an author, educator, and Creative Writing PHD graduate from Northeastern Ontario. Her fiction title Lies I Told My Sister and short story collection Notes Towards Recovery are available now.

LIES I TOLD MY SISTER

After a nine month estrangement, Lily is reunited with her younger sister, Rose, when Rose’s husband is badly injured in a car accident. Lily holds a key to her brother-in-law’s chance of recovery, but revealing what she knows will force her to face the childhood trauma she's never fully dealt with, and necessitate her confessing to the decades old secret which precipitated the chasm between them. She has always believed she’d do anything for Rose - but she hadn’t realized what it might cost her.

At what point does saying nothing become a lie? And how do you tell the person you love most in the world the truth, when that means you risk losing her forever? A novel of secrets hidden and secrets divulged, Lies I Told My Sister explores the power we ascribe to the stories we tell, and believe, about ourselves.

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Notes Towards Recovery

A woman suffering from Parkinson’s Disease worries about the role she may have played in her mother’s death, but, having lost the ability to speak, searches for a different way to communicate her fear. At a summer cottage and on a frozen lake, two sisters lose their brothers in different ways and each has to live with the knowledge that we are unable to protect from all harm the people we love. Too late, a woman discovers her older sister’s secret, and has to reassess her entire life.

Set in contemporary Canada, the twenty-one stories in Notes Towards Recovery explore the gaps created in families when a person is missing or has left through divorce, dementia or death. At the centre of these stories are the women who have to navigate loss and the spaces around that loss, often redefining themselves in the process. Woven throughout the collection are the suggestions that we create identities through the telling (and retelling) of our stories.

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About

Then & Now

2024

I was born and raised in Northeastern Ontario. After years of travel, I moved to Cambridge, England where I earned my PhD in Creative Writing. I teach at universities and colleges in England and Canada and currently live north of Toronto, where I can often be found in my library surrounded by books and snuggled up with my cats.

2019

Our weeks are organized according to the local Alzheimer Society schedule. On Mondays, my husband attends a day programme. Tuesdays, he goes to an art class, and I meet other caregivers for facilitated support. Wednesdays and Thursdays, more activities. Fridays start with breakfast with our new group of friends (comprising partners, one who is living with dementia and his or her caregiver) and are a highlight of the week for both of us. On the weekends, we spend time with my sister and her family, and also often my Mum. I can’t imagine how difficult this journey would be if we were facing it alone. . .

2016

After Grade 13 I left for a gap year in London – which turned into seven years spent in the UK, Europe and India. I returned to Canada to go to university, fast-tracked my degree, and then left again, this time for eleven years in the Caribbean, before once again returning to Ontario. . .