Ellen Hart (born August 10, 1949) is the award-winning
mystery author of the Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway series. Born in
Maine, she was a professional chef for 14 years. Hart's mysteries include culinary elements similar to those of
Diane Mott Davidson.[1]
Life and career
The author says of her work, "I don't write about the Mean Streets. I don't live there .... I don't do lots of blood and gore. I don't do sex scenes in any great detail. I'd never kill a dog or a cat. I guess you could call my style, maximal suspense and minimal gore."[2] Hart is openly
lesbian.[3] Her Jane Lawless series features a lesbian restaurateur and her smart mouth best friend, Cordelia Thorn. The Jane Lawless series began in 1989 and is an early post-
Stonewall example of the mystery genre in
lesbian literature. Hart's novels deal with
LGBT issues and five of the Lawless series have won
Lambda Literary Awards.[4]
Dubbed the "lesbian answer to
Agatha Christie,[5] " for her Jane Lawless series, Hart also pens the culinary Sophie Greenway mystery series. She frequently tours[6] and lectures on the craft of mystery writing. She has contributed to numerous crime writer anthologies including Resort to Murder: Thirteen More Tales of Mystery by Minnesota's Premier Writers.
In 2005, Hart was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame, joining literary greats such as
Dorothy Allison,
Felice Picano,
Katherine V. Forrest, and others. At the 2007 annual meeting of the
Golden Crown Literary Society, Hart was the keynote speaker. Nominated twenty-three times for the Lambda Literary Award, Hart has won six.
She is a founding member of The Minnesota Crime Wave along with Twin Cities crime-fiction writers Carl Brookins and
William Kent Krueger. The Minnesota Crime Wave's TV show about mysteries and writing airs on CTV-15 in the Twin Cities or episodes can be seen at MinnesotaCrimeWave.org.
Hart has taught introductory classes for mystery writers at
The Loft Literary Center in
Minneapolis for many years. She and Kathy, her partner of over thirty years, lived in Minneapolis[3] until 2012 when they downsized and now live in
Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
^Gonzalez Cerna, Antonio (1996-07-15).
"8th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary. Archived from the original on 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2022-02-27.{{
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