Elizabeth Uphoff Courtney

Elizabeth Uphoff Courtney is a writer living in Southport, Connecticut. Born in Canada and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, Elizabeth is a graduate of Kent School and Dartmouth College. She has a Master's degree in Public Health and spent most of her professional career in the nonprofit world, focusing on mobilizing support for international reproductive health, private school education, and homelessness.  Now she has turned her talents to fiction writing, featuring stories that explore the lives and loves of those in the preppy upper crust. Elizabeth attended the Yale Writers' Workshop in June 2024. She has three completed manuscripts and is seeking representation. She had a Modern Love essay published in the New York Times on July 26, 2024. 

Photo taken on Block Island, summer of 1991

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/style/modern-love-life-shaken-by-old-love-letter.html

I have completed three manuscripts and am seeking representation to get them published someday. Here is some more info about my work:

AMOR AETERNUS tells the story of Katelijne and Aalef, a girl and boy who were born on an island in Frisia (off the north coast of Germany) in the mid-1600s. Book 1 follows their life and love and includes tales of piracy and kidnapping, from the shores of the Caribbean to the Barbary Coast, around the Cape Colony and all the way to the island of Java. Book 2 describes what happens when the souls of Katelijne and Aalef are reincarnated into two people in the modern day, circa 2009, in Greenwich, Connecticut and Newport, Rhode Island. 

LATIN CLUB tells the story of twenty-two year old David, who has no idea of the dark forces that have shaped his destiny, leading him to think he was adopted from an orphanage. In the fall of 1984 David is excited to return to his prep school alma mater to be a Classics teacher alongside his beloved godfather, Jeremiah, a closeted gay man who knows more than one secret about David’s life. David’s world is rocked when he meets a beautiful girl; the attraction is mutual. Elation turns to horror when David and the girl come face to face in his classroom a few days later. Seventeen year old Felix, the girl with a boy’s name, is David's student. They immediately agree that they cannot pursue a forbidden romantic relationship. Tension builds as Felix and David grow close, a bond made even stronger when long-buried family secrets reemerge and Felix helps David unravel the tragic mystery of his birth. LATIN CLUB has been submitted as an entrant for the Yale Book Prize at Woodhall Press.

AMOR PRIMUS takes place from 1956–1962 and follows the lives of best friends Robert and Jeremiah, who have just graduated from a fictional boarding school in Connecticut. It is a coming of age tale focused on the challenges faced by Jeremiah, a young man coming to terms with his sexuality at a time when homosexuality was verboten. AMOR PRIMUS is the prequel to LATIN CLUB.  

All works cited above Copyrighted by Elizabeth Uphoff Courtney 2024