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Writing

"A subtle, brooding novel of environmentalism and human complexities set in the Pacific Northwest."
-Shelf Awareness

"In Scott Elliott’s novel, “Temple Grove,” the complex beauty of the Olympic Peninsula drips from the pages, all but reaching out with mossy hands to pull the reader in. It’s clear from the first enigmatic chapter, in which we are introduced to a woman named Trace, out hiking (unhappily) in the Olympic National Park with her infant son, that Elliott is a writer of deep compassion. Perhaps more than any book I’ve read set in the Northwest, “Temple Grove” gets the ambiance exactly right. From the clean, slicing cold of mountain air to the experience of watching ferries bump their way into docks to unload passengers, Elliott captures what it’s like to live in a place of such constant contradiction. "
-News of Mill Creek (Washington)

"Paying homage to Washington State ecology, history, and Native American culture, Elliott (creative writing and English, Whitman Coll.; Coiled in the Heart) joins the ranks of Jim Lynch, Jonathan Evison, Tim Egan, and Annie Dillard. Like these accomplished authors, Elliott shows a reverence for the state’s rugged physical beauty, using poetic language to convey its appeal and connection to each of the novel’s principal characters."
-Library Journal

“Just as axes find the oldest wood, so does the novel find its characters' oldest secrets….A roaming third-person narration allows many back stories, current desires and preoccupations to form a robust canopy in the novel. This makes the climax not just a single moment of action or revelation, but the playing out of each character's story, their confrontations with themselves and each other, secrets at the fore, no more illusions.”
—The Oregonian

"...Scott Elliott writes from that place where the old myths and the new stories collide. In Temple Grove, he reminds us of what it means to be lost to everyone and everything we have ever loved...and to be found again. It is a story of longing, cruelty, forgiveness, and redemption, shot through with intimate descriptions of a land on the cusp of ruin that will break your heart with their beauty."
-Kim Barnes
Author of In the Kingdom of Men

Coiled in the Heart

A novel published by Bluehen, Penguin/Putnam in 2003

"...a deeply satisying and wholly original read for the twenty-first century. Is reparation possible in the modern world? This ambitious debut novel asks no less of its flawed and affecting hero."
-Antonya Nelson

A Certain Kind of Rural Story

Short Story in Mayday

Leaf and Blade

Short Story in Juked

The Wheelbarrow Man

A short story in the summer 2006 Antioch Review