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.”
​
— Maddie Anthes, Hypertrophic Press in interview with Smokelong Quarterly
I write nonfiction essays on the women in my family. I braid in research like archives, photos or scientific studies to add a layer of journalism to personal stories.
​
My family came to the states as crop farmers and craftspeople in Mississippi, Nebraska and Indiana. I write with curiosity for rural life, rural people and their proximity to nature.
​​
I was raised in rural 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 and GrubStreet. 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' the same year. Other works can be found with Driftwood Press, Locus IX and Into the Void.
Imel was nominated for Chicago Reader's Best Nonfiction Writer of 2024 and is currently seeking representation for her first book; a memoir on her late grandmother.