Ellen J. Levy is an American writer. Her collection of short stories, Love, In Theory, was published in 2012.
Levy earned a BA from Yale University and has taught creative writing at Colorado State University.[1] Her work has appeared in The Paris Review,[2] The New York Times,[3][4] and Salon.[5]
She was the editor of the anthology, Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers, which won a Lambda Literary Award.[6] Levy's debut story collection, Love, In Theory, won the 2012 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, a 2012 Foreword Book of the Year Award (Bronze), and the 2014 Great Lake Colleges Association's New Writers Award for Fiction.[7][8] Kirkus Reviews named Love, In Theory one of the "Best Books of 2013".[9] It was released in French by Editions Rivages in 2015.[10] A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Levy "a master of his [sic] form".[11]
In February 2019, publisher Little, Brown and Company acquired Levy's historical novel, The Cape Doctor—a portrayal of James Barry, who was born Margaret Bulkley but dressed as a man to enter medical school and the army, institutions from which she was barred by sex, and lived so as an adult. The novel refers to Barry by first-person and male pronouns for the most part, never as a "heroine," but Levy referred to Barry as "she" on Twitter, which caused controversy among some trans activists who insist that exclusively male pronouns be used to describe the doctor.[12][13][14]
Levy identifies as queer.[14] In 2013, she married her husband.[5]