Stephen Elliott (born 3 December 1971) is an American writer, editor, and filmmaker who has published seven books and directed two films. He founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the online literary magazine The Rumpus, and in December 2014 became senior editor at Epic Magazine. For BDSM-literate readers he is best known for kink-forward nonfiction and erotica—especially the SM story collection My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up and the masochism-threaded true-crime memoir The Adderall Diaries—as well as for films that drag porn, power, and literary autofiction onto festival screens. His public life also includes serious sexual-misconduct allegations and litigation around the “Shitty Media Men” list; any honest profile has to hold the literary SM work and the #MeToo-era reckoning in the same frame.
Background and Education
Elliott grew up in Chicago. In adolescence he was made a ward of the court and placed in several group homes. He attended Mather High School and the University of Illinois, then earned a master’s in cinema studies from Northwestern University in 1996. In 2001 he received Stanford’s Stegner Fellowship for emerging writers in fiction and poetry, and later served as the Marsh McCall lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford. He is Jewish on his father’s side. That foster-care and group-home past is not decorative biography: it fuels the institutional-abuse and masochism themes that run through his fiction and memoir.
Books, Journalism, and The Rumpus
Elliott covered the 2004 U.S. presidential race in Looking Forward to It: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About It and Love the American Electoral Process. His novel Happy Baby, edited by Dave Eggers and co-published by McSweeney’s and MacAdam/Cage, appeared in February 2004; Picador issued the paperback in January 2005. In 2006 Cleis Press published My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up, a collection of S&M erotica often described as a sexual memoir—explicit masochistic and Domme-centered scenes written as literary short form rather than pure porn packaging. In April 2007 he published an essay about spending a month offline, claiming his attention span lengthened and he could think problems through to the end. In 2008 he founded The Rumpus, an online cultural commentary site that became a major indie-lit platform. In 2009 he published The Adderall Diaries, a true-crime memoir braided with the Hans Reiser murder trial, mood disorders, and masochism; it was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name with James Franco playing Elliott. Later nonfiction includes the essay collection Sometimes I Think About It (2017).
Films
In 2012 Elliott directed About Cherry, from a script he wrote with Lorelei Lee. The cast included Ashley Hinshaw, James Franco, and Dev Patel; the film debuted at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival. In December 2012 he raised Kickstarter funds for a second feature, Happy Baby, adapted from his novel. Production wrapped 7 July 2013; the movie released in 2016. The same year he was also associated with After Adderall. Together the films extend his literary brand into porn-adjacent and trauma-narrative cinema rather than leaving SM on the page alone.
Published Works at a Glance
- Novels: Jones Inn (1998); A Life Without Consequences (2001); What It Means to Love You (2002); Happy Baby (2004)
- Essays and nonfiction: Looking Forward to It (2004); The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder (2009); Sometimes I Think About It: Essays (2017)
- Short fiction / SM collection: My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up (2006)
- Films: About Cherry (2012); Happy Baby (2016); After Adderall (2016)
- Awards: 2001 Stegner Fellowship
Personal Life, Allegations, and Legal Fight
In November 2015 Claire Vaye Watkins published a Tin House essay describing an incident in which Elliott, visiting her program as a guest writer, repeatedly asked to sleep in her bed, then later sent a newsletter framing the incident in a way that left her feeling shamed for his behavior. In 2017 he appeared on the crowd-sourced “Shitty Media Men” spreadsheet of alleged sexual misconduct in media; entries against him included “rape accusations, sexual harassment,” and “coercion.” In October 2018 Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the journalist who started the spreadsheet. In March 2023 he reached a six-figure settlement with Donegan. After the suit, The Daily Beast reported that former Rumpus managing editor Lyz Lenz accused him of groping and of “hounding” her about watching a movie in his hotel room; the Beast’s own sourcing noted that linked tweets had been deleted and did not quote Lenz stating a groping claim in the form the headline implied, while The Stranger later questioned some of Lenz’s accusations. Separately, Elliott has been reported to frequent a Tokyo S&M club called Eureka for masochistic play—another public marker that his literary SM persona and private scene practice were not purely fictional.
Why He Sits on a BDSM Literature Shelf
Elliott’s kink-relevant archive is concrete: Cleis-era masochistic short fiction, a memoir that puts masochism next to murder-trial obsession and Adderall, films co-written with porn performer Lorelei Lee, and ongoing association with Japanese SM club culture. My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up remains a direct hit for readers who want literary SM rather than pure how-to manuals; The Adderall Diaries braids masochism into true-crime obsession in a way few mainstream memoirs attempt; About Cherry and the Happy Baby adaptation drag porn and trauma aesthetics onto festival and indie screens. He is also a case study in how literary scenes that glamorize power and pain can collide with consent politics outside the dungeon—guest-writer status, newsletter platforms, and editorial power are not the same as negotiated scene roles.
For adult readers, the useful approach is dual: read the books and films as documents of masochistic self-mythology and indie-lit SM, and read the Watkins essay, spreadsheet fight, and settlement as the parallel record of who held institutional power when the scene was not negotiated. That double ledger is part of his story now—whether you come for Happy Baby, The Adderall Diaries, the Rumpus-era media war, or the Tokyo club notes that keep his public image tied to lived masochistic play as well as published kink.
