Martin Ellsworth
Martin Ellsworth writes the Stories section of PinkArmy: short personal essays about the everyday material of a life - kitchens, tools, photographs, phone calls, the things people keep and the things they finally let go of. His research is a different discipline from the guide writers', but it is a discipline. He works from notebooks and attention, and when an essay touches a fact of the world - a date, a place, how a thing was made - he checks it, because even a small piece deserves to be true wherever it can be. His voice is quiet and specific; he distrusts the grand statement and trusts the small object that proves it. Martin Ellsworth is a pen name, disclosed openly: a real writer who prefers privacy, writing under a stable name so readers can follow the work. He makes no claim to authority of any kind, and his essays give no advice - not financial, not medical, not even the gentle life-lesson kind. A story about a parent's house is a story, never estate planning. The Stories section carries personal essays and short fiction drawn from a lifetime of observation; some pieces are composites, and none pretend to be reportage. What he promises is that the details ring true and the feeling is earned.
77 articles

The Dipstick

The Weight He Put Back on the Shelf

The Half-Empty Pot

The Room You Stopped Sitting In

What nobody finished saying: The afternoon we sat down and talked about our wishes

The Weekend With Nothing on It

The Window Seat

Finding the Best Diner in Every Town You Pass Through: Ray's Menu Lesson

The Things That Can't Explain Themselves

