Ellee Achten

Ellee Achten is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer living in Southeast Ohio. With a background in magazine journalism, she also holds a Master’s degree from Ohio University. Exploring issues of home, health, and connection, her work has appeared in Ohio Today, Brevity, Alimentum, Southeast Ohio, and elsewhere. She writes news and features, cultural criticism, book reviews, essays, and fiction, and is currently working on a memoir.

[Photo: Older-looking hands with bright red nails dole out to food to the hands of a child holding a plastic bowl.]

The Food Activism of Appalachian Teachers

Ellee Achten

The strike revealed the efforts public school teachers in the region routinely make to support all the needs of their students, including feeding them.

[Photo: Person with a hoodie over their face and arms crossed sleeps across two chairs, using a jacket as a pillow.]

In West Virginia, an Outbreak and Few Answers

Ellee Achten

Opioids and a rise in people experiencing homelessness have been blamed for a hepatitis A epidemic in West Virginia. But advocates for the homeless say the local census doesn’t support that.

[Photo: A woman sits and waits at a clinic]

In Appalachia, Women Put Their Bodies on the Line for the Land

Ellee Achten

Women turn to environmental activism later in life due to health concerns, deep community investments, and, according to 75-year-old Peggy Gish, because they have "more freedom to get around, to have time—to get arrested!”

[Photo: Medicinal herbs hang outside of a building]

Practitioners of Last Resort: Appalachia’s Alternative Health-Care Providers

Ellee Achten

Poverty limits access. To everything. Health care is no different. What’s unique about alternative or integrated care is that there is often no middle man, no gatekeeper.

The Fire Is Out in West Virginia’s ‘Chemical Valley,’ But Health Fears Remain

Ellee Achten

“Officials were saying it was ‘non-toxic,’ but then admitted they didn’t have a clue.”

West Virginia Families, Just Learning About Health-Care Access, Fear It Will Be Taken Away

Ellee Achten

Some patients in rural West Virginia have only recently been introduced to the realm of health care available thanks to the Affordable Care Act. “To have it stripped away is a tragedy,” said one local doctor.

Ellee Achten

The Food Activism of Appalachian Teachers

In West Virginia, an Outbreak and Few Answers

In Appalachia, Women Put Their Bodies on the Line for the Land

Practitioners of Last Resort: Appalachia’s Alternative Health-Care Providers

The Fire Is Out in West Virginia’s ‘Chemical Valley,’ But Health Fears Remain

West Virginia Families, Just Learning About Health-Care Access, Fear It Will Be Taken Away

Search: