Elissa Field is a Pushcart-, Best American- and Best Small Fictions-nominated writer whose fiction, nonfiction, and craft essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Reckon Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Ghost Parachute, Monkeybicycle, HAD, The Citron Review, Fictive Dream, Maudlin House, BULL, Hypertext, Conjunctions, Adelaide, Writer Unboxed, Sun Sentinel, and elsewhere. She is a current Submissions Editor (and prior Emerging Fellow) for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Elissa is querying agents, with a novel, series, and story collection available. Her literary noir thriller, Travel Red, was long-listed in the First Pages novel contest. Other work has been finalist or shortlisted for awards including the SmokeLong Summer Fiction Contest, the Heekin Foundation Award for the Novel in Progress, and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She is alumni of juried workshops including Bread Loaf (novel with Randall Kenan), Aspen Summer Words (novel with Hannah Tinti), Miami International (novel openings with Ann Hood), and Atlantic Arts (novel with Benjamin Percy), and earned a fellowship with Story Studio Chicago (novel with Michael Zapata).

Originally from Michigan, Elissa is in Florida by way of Atlanta, Charlotte, D.C., Richmond, a romantic detour in Bath, England, & Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor’s from Virginia Commonwealth University & a Master’s from the University of Florida. Her favorite coursework was done at the University of Bath (England) through the University of Rhode Island — history and literature courses taught on location in sites throughout England and Wales.

She is currently an English and Journalism teacher. Previously, she has taught writing and ancient world history, most interestingly at a juried school for the arts. In previous careers, she has worked for a judge, been a paralegal, processed autopsy photos for the commonwealth’s attorney, been a real estate photographer, assisted caterers, worked in a gourmet shop, worked in a marina, & mucked stalls. The varied worlds of her characters — and her movement between literary fiction and noir — pay heed to the vast, eye-popping experiences she’s been party to.

Elissa served as principle for In the Company of Words, a freelance writing, editing & project management business (with a side quest into trading rare books, that once had her delivering a first edition Hemingway on a run up to Sacre Couer). She continues to take limited editing and coaching clients during fall, spring and summer windows. Use the contact form for more information.

If it jars your memory where you’ve met… Elissa has been active in numerous writing communities, including Writer Unboxed, Wordsmith Studio, Story One, Story Studio, Binders, Mystery Writers of America, Flash Fiction Festival (UK), and SmokeLong workshops. She is most easily found on twitter @elissafield and instagram @elissalfield.

For those who’ve read her work, it is no surprise that she is mother to two wickedly funny sons. The fierce fight it took to raise two boys on her own is often a tender inspiration behind her fiction. Her work is equally influenced by her obsession with noir thrillers, Irish motorcycle racing, war journalists, obscure animals, and the aching search for loves lost.

Current projects:

Her novel draft, Never Said, has drawn some attention from agents. Her short story “That Bottle Green Phone Call, 2006” (in Reckon Review Feb. 2023) hints at the desperate search for a lost journalist that is a central theme to the novel. An unpublished excerpt, “Irish Whiskey at Le Louveteau,” earned juried workshop admission, a fellowship, shortlist for the Heekin Foundation Novel in Progress, and inquiries from agents.

Elissa’s published and pending flash and short fiction is assembling into a collection, titled There’s a Reason Things Bite. Links to stories appear below. “Another Problem Eels Don’t Need” (published as an Honorable Mention in SmokeLong Quarterly’s Summer Fiction contest; nominated for a Best of 2022 with Ellipsis Zine), “One of Us Will Reach Valhalla,” “North American Field Guide to How It Falls Apart,” “If We’d Only… Well, We Might Have” (nominated for Best Small Fictions), and “Security” are published stories from the collection, with other stories out on submission. Editors may use the contact form to enquire about available stories.

Travel Red is the first novel in a noir thriller series Elissa originally wrote as personal entertainment when she ran out of Tana French novels to read. Travel Red’s unpublished opening was long-listed by First Pages novel competition in June 2023. A related flash fiction — “Come Down Off My Throne, Don’t Leave Your Body Alone” — was published by HAD. Agent enquiries welcome.

She has backburnered an earlier finished novel, Breathing Water, set in the Cuban exile art community of Miami at the time of the 1995 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters, which was a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Fellowship.

Links and contact information are available on this site.