Ellen L. Ekström is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and was educated locally. She received a bachelor’s degree in theological studies with a concentration in Christian Mythos, also known as church history, and a sub-specialty in Christian Social Ethics. She took honors for both. Ordained to the vocational diaconate in 2002, she is a clergywoman in the Episcopal Church and is retired from parish ministry but still active in social justice issues and pastoral care. In 2024, she was inducted into Marquis Publishing’s Who’s Who in America for her literary work and service in the vocational diaconate.

Ellen has been fascinated by all things medieval since childhood. She is now studying Late Anglo-Saxon England in preparation for two forthcoming novels, Swannsaeld and The Sometime Queen-A Cheshire Tale, and the Fourth Crusade for George of Grasmere: The Ascalon Saga, the origin story of George Ascalon, a prequel to Armor of Light and Ascalon. Her preferred genres are fantasy/historical: her first novel, The Legacy, a tale of fourteenth-century Florence and Tuscany, was followed by her retelling of the St. George and the Dragon legend, Armor of Light, followed by St. Edmund Wood, a story of Victorian England—Ms. Ekström’s homage to Thomas Hardy and the Brontë sisters—and the sequel to Armor of Light, Ascalon. She recently completed and releasedGeorge of Grasmere: Part One-The Oath and the Twentieth Anniversary Edition of The Legacy. Occasionally, she delves into matters of the modern heart, as evidenced by her novels set in the Twentieth Century: Tallis’ Third Tune and Scarborough, which tell the same story of heartbreak and love from various points of view, and What She Wished For… a Cautionary Tale, a story about what can go wrong when you meet the right person. Just as a painter has many subjects to bring to a canvas, Ellen believes that there are many stories to tell, and to limit oneself to a niche isn’t the way she lives or thinks.