bio

Emily Woodworth grew up in Sisters, Oregon, where she developed a love for nature and the psychological pathologies that permeate small towns. In 2020, she received her MFA in Writing with an emphasis in Image+Text from CalArts, attending on a Lillian Disney Scholarship. (See her current CV.)

In 2021, Emily was a recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship from Literary Arts. She was also a Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing Fellow for the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference, where she presented on Indigenous ekphrasis.

She has written and been published in a range of genres. Her short fiction and nonfiction essays have earned her two Pushcart Prize nominations, a Best Small Fictions nomination, a place on the longlist of Wigleaf’s Top 50 (selected by Molly Gaudry), an Honorable Mention in the Anton Chekov Prize for Very Short Fiction (New Flash Fiction Review, Judge Hugh Behm-Steinberg), and a Notable mention in Best American Essays 2018 (ed. Hilton Als). Her story, “The Lightning Jar” was a finalist in cream city review’s Summer Prize in Fiction. While studying at Pacific University, she also won the Amy M. Young Award for Creative Writing (nonfiction) and Pacific’s Literary Undergraduate Magazine’s 1st Prize in Literary Analysis.

She holds a degree in Creative Writing (fiction) from Pacific University with a minor in Editing & Publishing. She graduated summa cum laude and was selected as Outstanding Senior in the Humanities and Outstanding Senior in Creative Writing (fiction).

Besides her prose writing, she also writes and produces films, including a web series called The Barista Times with her ultra-talented actor-brother Nathan. Emily also directed the entirety of the second season, which is currently in post-production. In 2020 she won (with her collaborator, Nathan Woodworth) Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress at the Maverick Movie Awards, plus received a nomination for Best Picture, for the short film The Purse: A Dream in Two Acts. The film went on to win an Audience Award at BendFilm Festival.

Emily is a descendant of the Karuk Tribe in Northern California.