Huey ~ Cloud Watcher Studio sign, Bluff, Utahīluff, Utah. Here’s an article I wrote on Bluff, Utah and Ellen for the now defunct Wasatch Journal in 2009. To buy it, click the Torrey House Press link above to listen to Ellen read an essay, click here. They partnered with Torrey House Press to publish them the book is called Seasons: Desert Sketches by Ellen Meloy and will be published in April 2019. It’s our great fortune that the good folks at KUER’s RadioWest recently uncovered a collection of essays Ellen wrote and read for NPR between 19. When she died at 58, I remember thinking it was her way of getting the last laugh that she was out there, just ahead of us on the trail, unseen, around the next bend, just out of sight, laughing at how we hadn’t gotten the joke.

After knowing her longer, I dispensed with checking, and just burst out laughing, knowing whether she showed it or not, she was too. I usually found her staring off at clouds, eyebrows raised, innocent of any implication. She was a caricature of herself, and always the butt of her own jokes–always the straight-faced wit.īefore I knew her well, I had to study her closely after she said something I found hilarious, as I, forever in awe, didn’t want to guffaw if she was serious. She was thin, and tall, and gangly, with haywire red hair and goofy front teeth which she exploited for her own humor. That’s one thing about dying young: so you are forever. And even harder to believe she’d be 73 now. It’s hard to believe I’m now five years older than my friend Ellen Meloy when she died, though she was ten years older than me when alive.

Eating Stone by Ellen Meloy