#####################
Dr. Murray Ellison received a Master’s Degree in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University 9n 2015 and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech (1988). He is married and has three adult daughters and a young granddaughter! He ‘retired’ as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. His MA thesis, on Edgar Allan Poe and 19th-Century Science, was published in 2015 and is now available online. Included in his ‘after-retirement activities,’ he founded and is still the chief editor of this literary blog. Currently, he serves as the Community Outreach Coordinator for the First Mennonite Church of Richmond(VA) and also participates in music there. He is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal, and a Co-Editor of the 2016 book of poetry, Mystic Verses, by Acharya Shambhushivananda, and has edited many other professional projects, including some doctoral dissertations. He serves as a volunteer tour guide for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia. For almost a decade, he has been teaching literature and music classes for LLI Chesterfield, The Shepherd’s Center Open University, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond. In 2018 and 19 (until the pandemic struck), he taught English Writing & Research Classes at the Richard Bland College of William & Mary University. He is the founder and Co-coordinator of the RVA Classic Book Club (Richmond, VA). Contact Murray at ellisonms2@alumni.vcu.edu.