Ellen Stimson is blessed with a wild pack of children; not-so-wild but completely adorable husband; and a very civilized group of chickens, dogs, and cats. Lately she’s decided that she really wants a pig. She writes about the whole catastrophe from an old farmhouse in Vermont. Please follow her on Facebook and check out her blog!
Stimson’s memoir ... reads like Erma Bombeck meets E. B.
White (with a dash of Elizabeth Gilbert thrown in). She’s
a natural storyteller and openhearted lover of her family,
her animals, and her big chaotic life.
Boston Globe
Boston Globe
Come sit on the porch swing with Ellen...
I've been a little uneasy about Christmas for a long time and now I shall stop.
'A festival of debauchery'. I like that idea. A big party. Cut out the stuff you
don't enjoy. And a whole raft of stimulating recipes and a good snowstorm."
Garrison Keillor
An Old Fashioned New England Christmas
coming fall 2015
With its trademark snow, piney forests, sleigh rides and woodsmoke curling out of village chimneys, New England was practically invented for the Christmas postcard. It’s got your Christmas goose and the maple syrup you are gonna use to glaze it. It is a whole bunch of the reason Ellen made Vermont her home. Here she shares recipes that have been in her family for generations, mixes up a cocktail or two, and invites readers to make their own traditions.
Listen to Ellen talk about the beauty shop ladies and their
Christmas legacies and then get your copy of An Old
Fashioned New England Christmas now!
GOOD GRIEF!
available now
One vacation changed everything.
Now, having settled the family in Vermont’s rich muddy soil, they are faced with new challenges of
raising kids in the paradise of this very small, very rural town. Good Grief tells the tales of the hopes
and dreams of parents just trying to do their best—and not always succeeding. Good Grief is all about
the inevitable moment right after somebody says, “What next?”
Ellen Stimson’s irrepressible optimism and good humor prevail as she, her two husbands, their three
kids, and various much-loved pets face down real life, and even death and grieving, with good humor
intact. This is life in a state where everyone knows everything, and everything is everybody’s else’s
business
“Imagine Jerry Seinfeld and Annie Dillard on the dance floor, gliding gracefully from keenly observed humor to contemplative insight. As they glide by, you join them in a few pirouettes, and the challenges of your own life transform: you laugh at them; you understand them better. When the music ends, you feel grateful, lighter, and more compassionate. That dance is Ellen Stimson’s Good Grief—Good Grief taught me to laugh harder and love better—and to always, always choose compassion.” (BK Loren, author of Theft and Animal, Mineral, Radical)
This is a tale to which all the cliché words absolutely apply: hilarious,
heartwarming, rollicking, and, most of all, rich in the real stuff of life.”
Julia Reed, author of But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!
Mud Season
available now
After a getaway in gorgeous rural Vermont—its mountains ablaze in autumnal glory, its Main Streets quaint and welcoming—Ellen Stimson and her family make up their minds even before they get back to St. Louis: “We’re moving to Vermont!” The reality, they quickly learn, is a little muddier than they’d imagined, but, happily, worth all the trouble.
In self-deprecating and hilarious fashion, Mud Season chronicles Stimson’s transition from city life to rickety Vermont farmhouse. When she decides she wants to own and operate the old-fashioned village store in idyllic Dorset, pop. 2,036, one of the oldest continually operating country stores in the country, she learns the hard way that “improvements” are not always welcomed warmly by folks who like things just fine the way they’d always been. She dreams of patrons streaming in for fresh-made sandwiches and an old-timey candy counter, but she learns they’re boycotting the store. Why? “The bread,” they tell her, “you moved the bread from where it used to be.” Can the citified newcomer turn the tide of mistrust before she ruins the business altogether?
Follow the author to her wit’s end and back, through her full immersion into rural life—swapping high heels for muck boots; raising chickens and sheep; fighting off skunks, foxes, and bears; and making a few friends and allies in a tiny town steeped in history, local tradition, and that dyed-in-the-wool Vermont “character.”
Good Grief! in Paperback!
available now
Be sure to check out GOOD GRIEF! available in paperback at the following retailers:
“Both hilarious and poignant, Stimson spins the tales of her ever-eventful small-town Vermont life with a self-effacing, smart, and heart-touching honesty that will make you feel as if you are sitting across from her at her (burned) dining room table—and wishing so much that you really were!” --Suzanne McMinn
