bio
Emma Copley Eisenberg is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Granta, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, Esquire, Guernica, The Washington Post Magazine, and others. She has received fellowships, grants and residencies from Bread Loaf, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Millay Colony, Jentel Foundation, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her debut novel, Housemates, will be published by Hogarth on May 28, 2024.
Her first book, The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, is a work of hybrid nonfiction that mixes memoir, cultural criticism, and reporting. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice of 2020 and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Bouchercon Award among other honors.
Eisenberg is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University, and has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, Temple University, and the University of Virginia, where she received her MFA in fiction and was a Henry Hoyns/Poe Faulkner fellow. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.
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Recent Writing
Some recent writing includes an exploration of fatphobia in contemporary literary fiction, an essay on about the “Unhinged Bisexual Woman” novel, a meditation on the digital exploitation of Philadelphia’s opioid crisis, a review of Marcy Dermansky’s newest novel Hurricane Girl, and a deep dive into why it’s so hard to find the right fat wedding dress. Other writings, including Pushcart-winning and notable Best American short fiction and GLAAD-nominated journalism, can be found in the archive.