Elyssa East received her B.A. in art history from Reed College and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Elyssa has received awards and fellowships from Yaddo and the Ragdale, Jerome, and Ludwig Vogelstein Foundations; the University of Connecticut; and the Phillips Library.

Elyssa’s writing has been published in The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Brooklyn Rail, Guernica, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and various New England regional magazines. A scene from Elyssa’s opera libretto, Mr. Hawthorne’s Engagement, was performed with American Opera Project’s Composers and the Voice series. Elyssa created Columbia University’s Artists’ Resource Center and ran KGB Bar’s Columbia University Faculty Selects Reading Series for three years. She has also worked as a baker, an archaeologist’s assistant, a ballet school dorm parent, a nonfiction reviews editor at Publisher’s Weekly, the Managing Director of the Maine Summer Dramatic Institute, and the Executive Producer of Shakespeare in Deering Oaks Park in Portland, Maine.

For much of Elyssa’s life she has lived on streets named for trees: Longwood Drive and Hickory Walk in Marietta, Georgia where she grew up; Oak St. in Telluride, Colorado; Alder St. in Portland, Oregon; and Pine St. in Portland, Maine. Elyssa currently resides in the Million Trees city, New York.