Creative Works
Explore Elizabeth Converse's books, excerpts, blog, and gallery.
Elizabeth's Artistic Journey
My creative journey began in New York City in the 70s in SOHO, where I worked as an artist, writer, filmmaker, and in theater. This early exploration across artistic disciplines laid the groundwork for my future.
I worked in experimental theatre, created exhibitions with other artists, wrote and produced several plays creating two fine art films, Mercy and ALexyz. When I started a family, I turned more towards writing continuing to create and sell paintings. I wrote for local journals and two early novels A Wild Thing, and the early drafts of Rosedust working with an editor through the Sarah Lawrence Writing Center.
In 1991, after returning to LA, I became a single mother, balancing roles as a mother, an arts writer, freelance decorative painter, fine art painter, professional organizer, and teacher. This challenging yet enriching period equipped me with a broad range of skills.
I returned to graduate school. In 1999.I founded a nonprofit organization that delivered original arts and literacy programs to underserved communities. These initiatives gave professional artists the chance to give back while working with youth in challenged areas. Partnering with organizations such as Pasadena/LEARNS, CASP, KidSpace, Ability First, and Scouts, substantial federal, state, and private foundation grants were secured, impacting thousands of children and families and training professionals in the field. Our programs received numerous awards and grants. In 2012, I passed the leadership to my colleague, Brande Jackson.
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Written Words
I now continue to evolve as a writer and artist. Publishing my first novel, ROSEDUST, in 2022 was a milestone that fuels my passion for writing. I have a new book, A WILD THING coming soon and I am now working on my third novel, THE ONLY REASON. I am also writing a new non fiction work, Grief In Pieces, a series of short essays exploring the stages of loss through a creative lens. I also continue to write Flash Fiction. So look for more writings to explore on my creative journeys of life, love and adventure.
Artistic Journey
Portfolio
Art and Writing
Discover books, excerpts, and a gallery of Elizabeth's creative expressions.
Personal Experience
My mother's cure for intense childhood restlessness of both mind and body was to send me to my room, which she supplied with books filled with words and images that traversed the landscapes of stories, images, dreams, and beliefs. The story taught me early how to explain myself, my perception, and my reality to others. "Go to your room" was my first opportunity to learn how to participate in and interact with my family, community, and society. Language creates a story, and the story is how we interact. My story, your story, our story. Language is a powerful tool for explaining ideas we have and can understand between us. All language creates the essential tools of human experience: individual, interactive, and universal. As a vast network of various cultures, ideas, and ideologies, we must sharpen our narratives and find a community to survive and develop a profoundly real, forward-moving, and healing world community. And that starts at home, in the intimate world of family and nurturing, and in the world of building our first understandings and learning how to speak of that. As a woman, my lifelong journey as a writer and artist is a powerful narrative of insight to strengthen and support.
I track the narratives of women navigating complex terrains—how we speak, survive, love and rebuild. We are passionate creatures. My subjects emerge from the margins: intergenerational stories, the unspoken languages of survival, the ways we create community through words.
I write to map the invisible connections: between silence and speech, between personal memory and collective experience. Each story becomes a bridge—connecting individual moments to universal truths, transforming personal struggle into collective healing.
Discover the craft and art of short fiction
Based on her award-winning curriculum, Elizabeth creates workshops and curricula current to our time.
Short and compressed fiction and nonfiction workshops.
Children's curriculum for art and literacy programs.
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Creative Excellence
Artistry Unleashed
Recent Paintings
Get in Touch with Elizabeth
Reach out for inquiries about my writing and artwork.
