Emma Copley Eisenberg is a queer writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her first book of nonfiction is The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia (Hachette Books, 2020) which was named a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice of 2020 as well as nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Bouchercon Award among other honors. Her debut novel, Housemates, will be published by Hogarth In May 2024.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Granta, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, Esquire, Guernica, The Washington Post Magazine, and others. She has received fellowships, grants and residencies from Bread Loaf, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Millay Colony, Jentel Foundation, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.
In an interview with The Millions, Eisenberg was asked how she decided to write Rainbow Girls as nonfiction, rather than fiction, her first choice: “I love fiction, particularly short fiction; it’s my first love, my first language. I tried to write this book as fiction at first, but it just didn’t work. I realized pretty quickly that because I’m not from the place where these events took place and where the camera of the book is looking, my imagination would not be able to supply the bone deep details and insights required to tell this story well and truthfully.”
Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.
