A writer is someone who writes. This is the mantra that has long guided Emily, though it took her a long time to accept the moniker for herself.

The daughter of a librarian, Emily was instilled with a love of reading and writing from an early age. She always had a towering stack of books on her nightstand, and she grew up crafting family newspapers and her first attempts at novels on the desktop PC in her childhood bedroom. She even dabbled in poetry during her angsty teenage years, but let us hope those journals never see the light of day again.

She was on her high school newspaper and intended to study journalism in college, but alas the world had thwarted her. As the future of journalism was shifting, the University of Colorado shut down its journalism program during Emily’s undergraduate years. Instead, she earned her BA in Classics, Ancient Roman art and architecture, to be exact.

What does one do with that? Teach, of course. She went on to earn a Masters in Education and taught Middle School English, helping adolescents find their own love of reading and writing. On the side, she wrote for various local magazines and continued to craft novels on the side.

The world would again force a detour in her writing career, as Emily pursued a corporate career for close to a decade. In the hours before and after work, when the sun was just bleeding into the night sky, she continued to write.

Today, Emily is finally that most elusive of things: a writer, someone who writes. Though many of her previous manuscripts live in files on her computer, The Last Empress is her first to be published. She keeps herself immersed in literature, working a few days in a small independent bookshop.

If you just can’t get enough of her work, you can follow her Substack, The Writer on the Water, or subscribe to her Podcast, The Odyssey of a Novel, wherever you listen to podcasts.