Ellis McHale writes Southern literary novels set in Lawhoma Hills, a fictional Oklahoma woodland town shaped by land, memory, and community. An Oklahoma native, she is a mother and grandmother who finds her truest rhythm in the garden, on a porch at dusk, or with twin grandsons tugging at her curtains. She writes with dirt under her nails in a house filled with music and dogs underfoot and believes a Sunday nap is an honest form of restoration.

She first encountered The Color Purple in eighth grade and never forgot the weight a story could carry. She returns often to writers such as Wally Lamb, Pat Conroy, and Wendell Berry, drawn to novels where place shapes people and memory refuses to loosen its hold. If a Ken Burns documentary is playing somewhere, she will find it.

She is the author of the Lawhoma Hills series and founder of Pink Door Publishing.