Emily Rapp Black is the author of five books of nonfiction: Poster Child: A Memoir (Bloomsbury), The Still Point of the Turning World (The Penguin Press), which was a New York Times bestseller; Sanctuary (Random House), which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice; Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg (Nottinghill Editions); and I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truthtelling, forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in 2026. Her short fiction, poetry and essays have appeared widely in many magazines and journals, including Vogue, the Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. She has ghostwritten books that have gone on to win the PEN USA Award in Nonfiction and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. A former Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellowship recipient, she attended Harvard Divinity School many years ago and integrates philosophy and classical texts into her teaching and work in order to disrupt and redefine those narratives. While a Winter Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, she began collaborating with the visual artist Carrie Scanga, and she has been working with visual artists ever since. Trained as a teenager for the opera, musicality and rhythm remain a dedicated focus in her prose. A longtime competitive skier, she also understands the importance and power of endurance. A longtime disabilities activist, she brings a passion for social justice and a firm belief in the power of community, as well as more than twenty-five years of experience teaching diverse groups of writers and thinkers all over the world. She is professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. She runs Circe Consulting, a full-service company for writers, with Gina Frangello.