About
Emily W. Pease grew up in Charlotte, NC and attended UNC-Greensboro (providing a sweet memory of Allen Tate guest teaching there) before graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with an honors degree in English with additional concentration in journalism. Following three years of odd jobs, including writing for two small newspapers, teaching English in an alternative school, and delivering lunches in an old milk truck to public parks, she attended Virginia Tech, where she received an MA in English. After a few years of adjunct teaching (Virginia Wesleyan University, Thomas Nelson Community College, William & Mary), she entered the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, working with Susan Neville, Andrea Barrett, Kevin McIlvoy, and Claire Messud.
She went on to teach at William & Mary in their writing program from 2000-2015. Each summer during that time, she served as the Writer-In-Residence for the Eastern Virginia Writing Project, a teaching and writing institute that met at William & Mary. Since 2015, she has taught college composition at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, creative writing with the Armed Services Arts Partnership, and fiction and nonfiction workshops at the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, VA.
Pease is the mother of three children, now adults, and two grandchildren. Her children have proved to be generous, hilarious, creative people who’ve brought equally generous, hilarious and creative spouses/partners into the family. And then there are the grandchildren, whose wild embrace of life makes the future feel hopeful.
Awards & Recognition
Poetry
Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize for “Veer,” Red Wheelbarrow Magazine (2025)
William Matthews Poetry Prize for “Lone Pony On the Last Farm In the City,” Asheville Poetry Review (2025)
Finalist, Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Film Festival Contest (2023)
Semi-Finalist for “Bertha,” Lit/South Awards, 2022, Litmosphere (Spring 2022)
Ekphrastic Challenge winner, artist choice, for “Color/Off Color,” Rattle (June 2021)
Fiction
“Submission” selected as a distinguished story, Best American Short Stories (2019)
C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize (2018)
Finalist, Craft Short Fiction Prize (2018)
Top Five Stories of the Week, Narrative Online (2017-2018)
Finalist, Autumn House Press Full-Length Fiction Contest (2017)
Finalist, Mary McCarthy Prize in Fiction (2017)
Crazyshorts! Prize in Short-Short Fiction, Crazyhorse (now Swamp Pink) (2015)
Bevel Summers Prize in Short Fiction, Shenandoah (2014)
Finalist, Faulkner-Wisdom Award for a Novel in Progress (2011)
Finalist, Dana Award for a Novel in Progress (2010)
Finalist, Mary McCarthy Prize in Fiction (2000)
Editor’s Prize in Fiction, The Missouri Review (1999)
Finalist, New Letters Literary Awards (1997)
Fellowships & Conferences
Vermont College of the Fine Arts Post-MFA Conference with William Giraldi (2019) and A. Van Jordan (2024)
Disquiet International Literary Program with Ru Freeman (2018)
Fiction Scholarship, Disquiet International Literary Program, Lisbon (2018)
Virginia Quarterly Review Conference with Bret Anthony Johnston (2017)
Fiction Scholar, Virginia Quarterly Review Conference (2017)
Napa Writer’s Conference with Lan Samantha Chang (2016)
Sewanee Writer’s Conference with Christine Schutt and Tim O’Brien (2015)
Tennessee Williams Scholar, Sewanee Writers Conference (2015)
Fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009)
Associate Artist with George Garrett, Atlantic Center for the Creative Arts (2004)
Alternate, Breadloaf Writers Conference Scholarship (2004)
Finalist, Virginia Commission of the Arts Fiction Fellowship (2000, 2004)
Additional press
“7 Books About Conflicted Spirituality” | Essay in Electric Literature
“Attracted to the Dark: A Conversation with Emily W. Pease” | Interview in The Rumpus
“Take Me Home, Country Roads: Let Me Out Here: Stories by Emily W. Pease” | Review in Salamander
“Let Me Out Here by Emily W. Pease” | Review in Ploughshares