Elissa's writing has appeared in The Rumpus, CRAFT, Atticus Review, Memoir Monday, and other publications.
She won the CRAFT 2023 Memoir Excerpt and Short Essay Contest, the Silver Rose Magazine Flash Fiction contest, and was a finalist for the Kenyon Review's Developmental Editing Fellowship. She received a Creative Individual grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and an Alumni Fellowship from Craigarden Residency. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net, and listed as Notable in Best American Essays. Currently, she's hard at work on Whore, Mother, Chrone, a memoir about her years as a sex worker and how it intersects with motherhood, getting older in a female body and a lifetime of disordered eating. She founded and was Executive Director of the theatre company, Double Helix Productions in New York. She lives and works in Massachusetts with her partner, two teenagers, a scruffy dog and a small flock of chickens. She's lifted by their love, support, and patience for her endless need to write.