Ellen Gilchrist's most celebrated works are her short stories that portray girls and women who have romantic longings that are frustrated by the conventions of southern society. With an unflinching realism for which Gilchrist has become known, her stories explore the minds of children and adolescents, often focusing on their disappointments when reality fails to match their dreams. The frustrations of Gilchrist's young women resemble those experienced by Katherine Anne Porter's protagonists who also rebel against the rigid constraints imposed by southern families. Gilchrist's reputation rests on her vivid prose style, in particular her deft use of irony and dialogue.

Ellen Louise Gilchrist was born on 20 February 1935 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and is the daughter of William and Aurora Alford Gilchrist; her father was an engineer. Although her career as a writer did not begin until after she was forty, its roots lie in her childhood home: the bayou...