An Interview with Katherine Elberfeld

Katherine Elberfeld’s southern childhood and background as an Episcopal priest infuses her work across a variety of genres including fiction, nonfiction, and reflections. In addition to advanced degrees in writing, Elberfeld holds a Master of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary. She was ordained to the priesthood in 1994.

Elberfeld grew up in Gainesville, GA, and now lives in nearby Marietta. She has two grown sons, is a Far Side aficionado, and cannot live without pickleball.

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Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Ah, yes, the title. A while back, my brother and I were talking about the novel when I was working on it, and he asked what I was going to call it. When I told him An Umbrella Made for a Man, he laughed out loud. And kept laughing. That was when I knew that title captured the essence and spirit of the book and what I was trying to say with it.

The name came to me as a gift, silently and clearly, and before I even fully understood why it was the title for which the book itself was searching. Occasionally, over the thirteen years I spent writing An Umbrella Made for a Man, I tried out a couple of other names, but none of them clicked in the same way. I like how it conveys an accessory made for a man that a woman is trying to make work for herself.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

When I saw the final version of the cover designed by Ronaldo Alves, I knew it was the one. It caught Irene, the book’s protagonist—both her struggles and the spitfire in her soul.

Seeing the right cover is like falling in love: You know when it’s right. And I am very grateful to Ronaldo and his team for their expertise, gifts, and patience in whittling down the images until we got precisely the artwork to ignite interest and curiosity in the reader, to invite him or her to open the book and begin to explore what’s inside. It was like working with a sculptor who digs, chops, and slices through wood or marble to find the creation waiting within.

As for holding the book in my hand, I was filled with awe and disbelief. After all, I began writing Umbrella in 2012 and it was released on July 8, 2025!

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I have often joked that we, in our family, have ink running in our veins rather than blood! My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all journalists, as was I in the beginnings of my professional writing career.

I have been writing since I was five and for publication and pay since the mid-1970s. I have always written and will always write. It’s a way for me to process what happens in my life, what I observe, what I think about various experiences, encounters with other people, challenges, joys, and sorrows.

My first collection was a set of short stories called Made-Up Stories that I gave to my friends for Christmas when I was in the first grade. I still have a copy of it: the stories secured between green construction paper, a red bow on the front, and the title. I remember sitting with my mother at her desk, putting the book together as she helped me with each stage of production. I value that memory with her as much as I value the stories themselves.

I have been very much influenced by Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, but now I feel that I’m more and more finding my own voice, and I intend to keep moving in that direction as I go forward with my work.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

As I mentioned, I was a journalist first, then my writing expanded into various genres, including fiction and meditations. After thirteen years of working on newspaper staffs and freelancing, I was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1994.

Readers may not know that I devoted most of my ordained ministry to educating people about and training them in servant-leadership. A leadership style that shares power and control, decision-making and the casting of visions. It’s a collaborative style of leadership that involves the whole team, rather than the top-down hierarchical way of running organizations.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Since childhood, I have had in me a hot, visceral reaction to hypocrisy, injustice, and lack of fair play. And a determination to expose situations for what they are rather than what people think they are.

An Umbrella Made for a Man is a fictionalized account of my experiences as a woman in the Episcopal priesthood. Experiences marked by microaggressions, sexual innuendos, and dismissive attitudes, mostly from my male colleagues. It is a story of gender bias gone underground, morphing into a form of guerrilla warfare. And, to me, a story that needed to be told.

Readers and reviewers have commented that they had no idea what it was like for Irene—and me—to face that environment at work every day and to have to keep figuring out ways to navigate it in a way that kept her and me as safe as possible. It is very satisfying to expose that systemic malignancy and make it known. That’s the only way we can continue to make changes that need to be made.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Against the Wind by Bob Seger.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

In my writing, I look unflinchingly at whatever darkness hides under rocks in our culture, institutions, and psyches. I name it, examine it, then allow fresh air and sunshine to wash it clean and make us new, always leaving the reader with hope and grace.

The perfect reader will catch fire with the outrage that Irene’s story ignites and will take her message to others—by letting people know about the book, holding conversations about similar experiences others have undergone in their own environments—whatever ways they can think of to keep the discussion alive, the momentum going. And at the same time, to hold steady with the promise of hope, joy, and love.

We recently had such a conversation at The Reading Attic, an independent bookstore on the square in my town, Marietta, GA, and it was everything I had hoped it would be. When I asked the group at the end what can we do to resist the grip patriarchy has on our lives and the demeaning ways in which we as women are often treated in various situations, the group’s answer was simple:

Keep sharing our stories.

Keep speaking up.

Keep speaking out.

I had a wonderful conversation recently with a friend who downloaded Umbrella on its launch day. He told me that he had no idea this kind of treatment was going on, and he has resolved to ‘do better’ as he goes forward in his life.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

For some time, I have wanted to come out from behind my characters and reveal more of myself to the readers. To let them know that the experiences I am describing actually happened to me, not to a character I have developed to take my role in the narrative.

Pieces in which I can share my own experiences, feelings, and perspectives on what I have undergone, felt, observed. Telling stories as I would tell them to a friend—directly and without a character to shield my real self.

That is where I need to go next in my work; where I need to go to take my writing to a new level. By sharing episodes from my own life frankly and openly with readers, I will be revealing more of myself than before and making myself more vulnerable to them. By doing that, I believe that the readers and I will form a stronger connection and that we can go deeper to explore the intricate layers that make up our lives.

Writing in this way has its challenges, too: How much of myself do I divulge? How do I ensure that the writing is not ego-centric, that it pulls the readers in so they recognize their own experiences, thoughts and emotions in what I describe?

I wrote about these tensions in Umbrella Made for a Man:

It’s amazing how many times I ask:

Can I write this?

Will it offend or—worse—hurt someone?

Will it reveal too much of myself?

Will it sound boastful?

And now I ask:

How long will it take for me to stop asking myself those

questions?

Or should I?

I envision writing about my experiences as they come to me and trust that a thread will emerge to connect the stories as they find their places with the others.

I am excited about this new adventure in storytelling.

Sneak preview:

Eye to Eye

The hummingbirds are bellying up to the bar these days—I imagine getting ready for the long flight to their other home across the Gulf of Mexico. As much as I love watching them hover at the nectar tray, I feel a pinch of dread, too, because this incessant feeding means the time for them to migrate is encroaching, and they will be gone soon.

Today, I was at the screen door to the deck looking out, when one of the little ones, wings ablur, hung just outside where I stood and swiveled around to look me right in the eyes.

I don’t know if the little bird was male or female, not sure if those round eyes were brown or black.

What I do know is that warmth spread through me as we gazed at each other. And as the moment held us, suspended, the unmistakable presence of innocence bloomed in the air between us and around us.

Unbidden. A surprise.

Really?

But yes, oh, yes.

Of course.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

I have been looking for Atmosphere Press all my life. Years ago, I read that Flannery O’Connor would send her short stories to magazines like Mademoiselle and Redbook, and whoever opened the envelope from her would run down the hall to another editor’s office, waving the paper in the air. “Here’s another one!” she would call out, so excited that they had another installment from that southern treasure.

I feel that Atmosphere receives me in the same way—encouraging me in my current work, cheering me on about future work. Giving me space to be who I am, giving me space to write about what I need to write about and in the way I need to write it.

Atmosphere has a deep bench of highly educated, experienced, and knowledgeable staff covering all aspects of development, production, and publicity. They are among the best with whom I’ve worked in my long career, and I will always be grateful to them for the ways in which they’ve improved my work and introduced it to the world.

Others agree. In a recent Booklife review of Umbrella, Atmosphere Press received all A’s on their production elements:

Cover: A

Design and typography: A

Editing: A

Marketing copy: A

I am grateful for Atmosphere’s patience in answering my questions, working out any challenges that came up in the process, and most of all, I thank them for their open arms.

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