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Ellen Porter

Goodreads Author

Born

in Columbus, GA, The United States

Genre

Fiction, History

Member Since

August 2016

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Ellen Porter was born to an Army officer and his wife in Columbus, GA. After her father served his time in the Army, Ellen came with her parents to their hometown, Chowchilla, California. This is a small farming town named for a tribe of Native Americans with the same name. Since the original residents didn't have the English alphabet, who knows how they spelled it. Ellen's series, The Redskins, is about these Native Americans, which she has chosen to spell Chaushilha. To distinguish them from a slightly different tribe that inhabited the foothills and mountains above present-day Chowchilla, the books also make reference to the Miwok Chauchila.

Ellen has titled this series The Redskins in memory of her high school mascot, Reddy Redskin, Aft Ellen Porter was born to an Army officer and his wife in Columbus, GA. After her father served his time in the Army, Ellen came with her parents to their hometown, Chowchilla, California. This is a small farming town named for a tribe of Native Americans with the same name. Since the original residents didn't have the English alphabet, who knows how they spelled it. Ellen's series, The Redskins, is about these Native Americans, which she has chosen to spell Chaushilha. To distinguish them from a slightly different tribe that inhabited the foothills and mountains above present-day Chowchilla, the books also make reference to the Miwok Chauchila.

Ellen has titled this series The Redskins in memory of her high school mascot, Reddy Redskin, After the community (not yet incorporated as a city at that time) was named Chowchilla in 1912, and the high school took the same name along with the Redskin mascot in 1916. For oh-so-close to 100 years, and technically a few months over, the Redskins were a source of pride to Chowchilla, both on the athletic field and in the classrooms. But Chowchilla High School was publicly shamed by the State Legislature in October 2015, when the state passed the Racial Mascots Act, banning schools from using Redskins as a mascot. Chowchilla and three high schools that had already been the Redskins for more than a century had to give up their beloved Redskins.

It felt like California had just killed four old men. On November 1, 2015, Ellen Porter began writing a novel with the premise 99-year-old Reddy Redskin had been murdered by newcomers to Chowchilla who didn't like him. But, as she wrote, she knew this story had to go much farther back than Reddy did.

The Red Hawk starts in 1849, when Reddy's great-grandparents were children, and tells a story of what may have happened when white people first had contact with the Chaushilha tribe. The Last Chief of the Chaushilha and The Basket Maker continue the story, which Ellen intends to eventually go all the way to what she envisioned happening in 2015 (sorry for the series spoiler!) ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?

Ellen Porter He died because they didn't like his name. The end.

Ok that's not really the end, just the end of this two sentence horror story. But there's so much …moreHe died because they didn't like his name. The end.

Ok that's not really the end, just the end of this two sentence horror story. But there's so much more to say and I do so in this series of books I am writing. (less)

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If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?

Ellen Porter I'm going to have to answer it from my perspective as a historical fiction writer. And historical fiction characters don't live in fictional worlds bu…moreI'm going to have to answer it from my perspective as a historical fiction writer. And historical fiction characters don't live in fictional worlds but in the real world. Butt they live in it uring a time their author most likely knows nothing about. I say most likely because one of the books I write towards the end of the series will begin about 55 years ago and go to about 40 years ago. So for that book it's a time and place I know very well. It's my hometown. But as the author of a series about a family who lived there long before anyone else, I would love to go back to that town in those early days when only the Chaushila tribe and perhaps the Eastman family lived there. A century before I did, which was 1964 to 1983.(less)

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Ellen Porter’s books

Average rating: 5.0 · 2 ratings · 2 reviews · 5 distinct works

	The Red Hawk (The Redskins Book 1) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Sweetness of San Francisco it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Last Chief of the Chaushilha (The Redskins #2) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Basket Maker (The Redskins, #3) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A New Beginning 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Ellen Porter…

5 posts
Ellen Porter's Blog: The blog for The Red Hawk

Romanticizing the Native American culture...not a good idea

From what I can see, for much of the 20th century, Native Americans were portrayed in literature as peaceful, loving people who unquestionably accepted the atrocities committed against them, especially here in California, during the 19th century. The literature makes them look lazy and ignorant. And, much literature in the 21st century portrays them as a victimized culture, who were never in t Read more of this blog post »

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Published on April 20, 2017 09:00

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