About the Author

Elizabeth Schurman is neither Parisian, nor, strictly speaking, of the plains.  Kansas City, Missouri is quite rolling, and when it snows, there are plenty of hills in the area that her rear wheel drive car cannot conquer.  But Paris of the Plains it was– and, upon this page, is.

Schurman emerged from a small house on a busy street in an preternaturally safe suburb.  She was raised on a diet of Simon and Garfunkel, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George Orwell.  Early experiments in truth included: roly-poly observation, playground gymnastics, Arctic role playing, simulated subterranean microeconomics, and the formation of secret and not-so-secret societies of all kinds.

Today, under the more official name Elizabeth Schurman, she writes Serious essays and fiction, to the extent that things become Serious, and less Serious blog posts, in the cracks of the schedule of the manic-depressive carnival of a cheerful “urban core” high school where she has taught English for seven years.

She hides from the world in an ancient-for-its-location carriage house, next to the abandoned mansion where she holds art openings and parties under the auspices of the Myers Mansion Arts Society, Krewe de Bastille, and Societe Anonyme, and she regularly squirrels and schemes get out to see what everyone in the rest of the world is up to, and has been up to, for the last 5,000 years.

Sometimes she experiments with outrageously long sentences, as well.  This may be a side effect of reading a lot of books written more than a hundred years ago.

Her work has appeared at Knee Jerk Magazine , at presentmagazine.com and in the Kansas City Star and at Kansascity.com as part of their Faith Walk series.  And she has written a little art criticism for Review, at ereview.org.

She is the author of two books seeking adoption by a publisher: a novel, and a memoir on teaching and education.