By Emily Mack

My Story

As a writer, I cover pop culture, rock and roll, fashion, real estate, politics... just about everything. But that journey started at Columbia University, where I first gravitated toward nonfiction writing. The genre provided the chance to flex my muscles as critic. I'm very opinionated, so it was a natural fit. 

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In 2016, my fashion commentary earned first prize from the Illinois Woman's Press Association. The following year, my essay about Cher, "Dark Lady Laughed and Danced," won the Maggie Nelson Nonfiction Prize. Later, as a senior, I became en editor at The Columbia Review and earned the department's inaugural Ellis Avery Award for showing "great promise" in the field of writing.

Since then, my work has appeared online at Ultimate Classic Rock, Wide Open Country, Rare.us, and regularly in Chicago Agent magazine where I am the senior editor. In print, my pieces have appeared in The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook, Quarto Magazine, 4x4, Inscape Magazine, Tabula Rasa, and The Best Teen Writing series.

Outside of work, I read memoirs for Mud Season Review and coach teenagers on how to write Common App essays. I'm also currently editing a full-length essay collection of my own, a continuation of my senior thesis. These stories focus on coming of age in Chicago.

Growing up in Chicago, I was so inspired by the city around me and started writing creatively at a young age. This early work was recognized with great honors from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a foundation where I would eventually intern in 2018 and judge for nationally in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024. During high school, I was also the editor-in-chief of our school newspaper and literary magazine, the captain of our Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam team, and a youth critic for The Goodman Theatre.

I always found so much joy in celebrating the stories of our local community, I was excited to return to my hometown after college. I'm now open to any work that engages with those primary interests.