Elizabeth Rush

Elizabeth Rush is an American nonfiction writer and journalist. Her debut book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (2018), became the Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in the Washington Post, Harper’s, Guernica, Granta, Orion, and the New Republic.

Elizabeth Rush obtained her MFA in nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University and her BA from Reed College.

She received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Howard Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the Metcalf Institute.

Rush spent many years reporting from coastal communities already feeling the pressure of higher tides and stronger storms. In Rising, she weaves her personal experience with first-hand testimonials of those living on climate change’s front lines, guiding readers through some places where sea level rise is a reality.

In 2019, Rush joined fifty-seven scientists and crew onboard a research icebreaker for months. The goal: to learn as much as possible about Thwaites Glacier, never before visited by humans and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on the global sea-level rise this century.

In The Quickening, Rush documents their voyage, offering the sublime—seeing an iceberg for the first time, the staggering waves of the Drake Passage, and the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites—alongside the mundane moments of this groundbreaking expedition.

Along the way, she takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to bring a child into the world at this time of radical change?

The Quickening: On Motherhood and Antarctica in the Twenty-First Century is forthcoming with Milkweed Editions in 2023.

Elizabeth Rush currently lives with her husband and son in Providence, Rhode Island. She also teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University.

Photo credit: elizabethrush.net
years of life: 26 May 1984 present

Books

fb2epub
Drag & drop your files (not more than 5 at once)