About
“I, personally, love stories that are grounded in natural elements.
Taylor Imel’s ‘My Mother is a Person’ is a great example of this.”
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— Maddie Anthes, Hypertrophic Press in interview with Smokelong Quarterly
I write nonfiction essays on the women in my family. I braid in research like photos, archives or scientific studies to add a layer of journalism to personal narratives.
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My family came to the states as crop farmers and craftspeople in Missouri, Nebraska and Indiana. I write with curiosity for rural people, the pace of their lives and conversations and the proximity they keep to nature.
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I was raised in Indiana and moved to Chicago for college. I live in Chicago, now, with my two cats and work as a copywriter for ADWEEK. A few times a year, I lead essay workshops at Heirloom Books. You can check them out here.
Imel’s essay 'Posthumous Requests' was a 2021 finalist for the Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction. She read the earliest version of this essay in 2018 at San Francisco’s historic Lit Crawl Walking Tour as a contributing author of Zoetic Press.
Her work of prose 'My Mother is a Person' was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and awarded “Best of Small” by Hypertrophic Press, along with flash essay 'Paper Girl' in 2016. Other works can be found with Driftwood Press (poem), Locus IX (poem) and Into the Void (essay).
As of 2024, Imel is finishing a memoir on her grandmother.