About Me

I've kept a personal journal since I was nine years old, and on the merit of that fact, I feel entitled to call myself a writer. I'm also a mama of two young children, a high school English teacher, an outdoor enthusiast, a reader-of-literature-while-in-the-outdoors (or just stretched out on a couch somewhere), and day-dream believer. I love lakes. And ice cream. And conversation.

This website, begun as a blog in 2010, is where I first gave myself permission to write publicly. Many good things have happened since then--publications, conferences, speaking gigs, business contacts, awards, and grants--often as a direct result of this space.  Although I am here infrequently now, it's my anchor in the online world, and as I finish this novel I'm working on and eventually return to the essays I have on the back-burner, I hope you check in and stay connected. Isn't it always a great day when someone new says hi?  

I have an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. My essays, stories, and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including The Washington Post, Creative Nonfiction's True Story, Creative Nonfiction's Sunday Shorts, The Writer's Chronicle, Orion, River Teeth, Hippocampus Magazine, Ninth Letter, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Fourth River, december magazine, under the gum tree, Atticus Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Grub Street Literary Review, Porcupine Lit, New Plains Review, Sweet, Lumina, New South, Saw Palm, Tahoma Literary Review, Armchair/Shotgun, Split Rock Review, Midway Journal, Brain,Child, Motherwell, Mamalode, Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, Tribe,  Minnesota Conservation Volunteer, National Park Foundation, Birmingham Arts Journal, The Talking Stick, A View From The Loft, Dust and Fire, Third Wednesday, Minnesota English Journal, Every Day Poets, The Backcountry Journal, MinnPost.com, Adventum Magazine, A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays anthology, the Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach anthology, several radio broadcasts and podcasts, and four Roadside Poetry billboards. I've presented on writing and blogging at The Loft Literary Center's Nature and Environmental Writing Conference and the Chanhassen Writer's Fair, and taught adult writing classes through Minnetonka Community Education and the Hennepin County Library System. I'm a Curt Johnson Prose Award finalist, a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and a Minnesota Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant recipient. I live just west of Minneapolis with my family. 

You can connect with me on Instagram here 
(mostly kiddos, nature, books, and the occasional longform caption).

Or on Twitter here (though I haven't logged on in maybe three years).

Or there's good ol' email at emilybrisse [at] gmail [dot] com.

And if you haven't already, sign up for my (very occasional) newsletter. 

I appreciate this community so much.