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Ellen Snortland

As a writer - producer - director - humorist - actor - dormant lawyer - women's and children's self-defense advocate - homemaker, Ellen Snortland has the unique ability to speak and write with authority on a variety of subjects. These range from knitting and cooking, to S.W.A.T. team methods of close quarter hand-to-hand combat, to the opportunities and obstacles of the professional American woman. Her perspective provides a much needed bridge of understanding between the home, university and the office. True to her Renaissance Woman nature, she is the author of "Beauty Bites Beast: The Missing Conversation About Ending Violence," which was features on Dateline NBC and is now in its 3rd edition. This ground-breaking book has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Korean.

For 25 years, Ellen has been shaking up the status-quo and providing thought provoking social commentary via her "Consider This..." column described as California's Molly Ivins with her own unique humor, vast experience, and an abiding commitment to social change. She emerged as a fresh and progressive voice of the 90s, and continues her provocative column into the new century.

In addition to the Pasadena Weekly, Ellen has for many years been a contributing writer to Ms. Magazine. In addition, she has articles on the MS Blog, and was a regular Huffington Post contributor with over 40 articles posted. To fosters writers and writing, Ellen is also the founder and coach of The Writer's Workout.

Ellen Snortland was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in South Dakota. She graduated at 16 from Augustana Academy, an experimental private high school, just as the woman's movement was revving up. Ellen moved to California by herself to become a member of the esteemed Pacific Conservatory of the Preforming Arts in Santa Maria. She co-founded the first all-woman theater company in the nation, Theater of Process, which was featured in an early issue of Ms. Magazine and the front cover of the L.A. Times Sunday Calendar section. "I figured in order to get ahead, we'd have to carve out our own niche," Ms. Snortland said, and added, "Besides, anyone who can read a recipe can run a theater company...or run for president."

The theater company premiered new works as well as classics. After men were integrated into the company, Snortland produced and starred as Nora in a highly acclaimed production of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" with co-star Ted Danson. She also co-wrote and directed shows that were both SRO and received rave reviews in the Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.

As a little girl, Ellen asked her father if she could be a "renaissance girl," to which he said "Yes!" After receiving her B.A. cum laude in theater and film at U.C., Irvine Snortland decided a good "renaissance" move would be to study law. Attending law school at Loyola in Los Angeles gave her a keen understanding of women's rights as well as responsibilities. After passing the California Bar exam, Ellen jumped feet first into the entertainment industry as a performer and coach. As a performer, she accomplished what many fail to do: she became a working actor in commercials and a regular on two series: "Anything for Money" and "Divorce Court."

Ellen temporarily adopted a screen name, Ellen Emory, for a nine month-long pilot for "TV LITE," a satirical TV news magazine program at KCRA in Sacramento, California, where she was a TV reporter; it aired many years before The Daily Show premiered. Snortland has also performed as a singer and stand-up comic, done voiceover work in TV dramas and cartoons, a kid's audio tape with Shari Lewis, Shelley Duvall's innovative CD-ROM interactive project, "It's A Bird's Life," and the Sega/Entergamement's CD-ROM project, "Make My Video."