Elissa R. Sloan
Elissa, a native Texan, grew up on a steady diet of peanut butter sandwiches and books.
She pronounces her name Uh-lees-uh.
Elissa R. Sloan grew up in Houston, Texas. Born to a Japanese immigrant mother and Jewish American father, Elissa understands the importance of representation in stories and media, and cites Claudia Kishi as one of her young heroines. Elissa graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, concentrating on WWII history and English. When she’s not writing, Elissa is also an artist and professional photographer, spending the last decade shooting weddings for a living. Though she’s not a gossip in real life, she loves to keep up with celebrity dirt; her debut novel, The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes, was borne from that interest. She currently lives in Austin with her husband and two cats in a house with a rolling library ladder.
Author photo by Caitlin McWeeney »
Some childhood favorites that she still enjoys include:
- A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Current favorites include:
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
