Hi, I’m Elena Selk

I’m a writer, educator, and Fulbright scholar.

After earning my BA in social work from San Francisco State University, I worked as a Capital Fellow with the California Department of Social Services. Later, I worked as a mental health counselor to children and youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

Throughout this time, I was always looking for free time to write until I admitted to myself that writing was all I wanted to do.

I received my MFA in creative writing from CalArts.

My fiction has been supported by the Community of Writers Summer Writing Workshops and the Tin House Workshop. It has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions.

I have worked as a tutor since 2018.

I began tutoring at the CalArts Writing Center and later worked at the Classroom Matters tutoring center in Berkeley and as a freelance tutor. While working at Classroom Matters, I was trained to provide academic and executive functioning support to neurodivergent and neurotypical students.

Students I’ve tutored in college application essays have been accepted to Bryn Mawr College, Smith College, Bard College, and Lewis and Clark College, and elsewhere.

I was an editor at Sublevel Magazine from 2018-2019.

I have since interned with literary and children’s book agent Anna Olswanger and worked as a freelance editor. I have edited short stories, essays, novels, memoirs, picture books, Middle Grade, YA.

I was awarded a Fulbright Journalism Grant to Germany in 2022.

I spent ten months visiting archives, combing through academic journals, visiting historical sites, and interviewing experts to aid in my research for a historical novel depicting the relationship between German psychiatry, art, and activism in the 20th century.