Jim Elledge papers

Jim Elledge graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a B.A. in English in 1971 and in 1973 with an M.S. in Library Science. After working as the Reference Librarian at Mundelein College, Chicago, and then as the Assistant Medical Librarian at the Columbus-Cuneo-Cabrini Medical Center, also in Chicago, he attended the University of Illinois at Chicago (U.I.C). He received a Ph.D. in English with a specialization in creative writing from U.I.C. in 1986.

Elledge served as assistant editor of Poetry from 1983 to 1988 and then associate editor of Illinois Writers Review and Book Review Editor of Pikestaff Forum. He was associate professor of English at Illinois State University where he taught creative writing and literature. In 2006, Elledge started teaching poetry writing at Kennesaw State University, retiring in 2016. There he specialized in Creative Writing and Queer Studies, and was the Director, M.A. in the Professional Writing Program.

Elledge has published a range of work. His volumes of poetry include Tapping My Arm for a Vein (2015), the Lambda Literary Award-winning A History of My Tattoo: A Poem (2006) and several other titles. His edited volumes include Queers in American Popular Culture (2010) and, with David Groff, Who's Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (2012), also a Lambda Literary Award winner. He has edited several poetry anthologies and, as a critic and bibliographer, has published on Frank O'Hara, Weldon Kees, Wilfred Owen, and James Dickey. Elledge's major non-fiction work is Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy: The Tragic Life of an Outsider Artist, published by Overlook Press in 2013. Darger (1892-1973), a reclusive Chicago custodian, created a number of lengthy, illustrated works of fantastic fiction that were discovered after his death. Elledge's book on Darger won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for biography, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for gay male memoir/biography and for the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for gay nonfiction. Elledge's work on the artist led him to extensive research on gay culture and sexuality during Darger's time. He has published on other historical topics and has produced imaginative work inspired by Darger, prose poems published as The Book of the Heart Taken by Love (2007) and H (2012).