Ellis Anderson has worked as a jeweler, designer, gallery owner, musician, civic activist and, last but not least, an author. In 1995, she moved from New Orleans to the Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Bay St. Lois, MS and spent ten years there before it bore the full wrath of Hurricane Katrina. Following the storm, Anderson wrote essays examining the role community plays in catastrophe; her writing garnered her a Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Fellowship among other awards. A book containing these essays, "Under Surge, Under Siege, the Odyssey of Bay St. Louis and Katrina," is being published by University Press of Mississippi and will be released in the summer of 2010. In this interview, Ellis reads an excerpt from her book and talks about her experiences.
Interviewed February 4, 2010 by Hannah Leatherbury. Edited by Quyana Barrow