Emma Pattee

Portland

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Climate journalist. Writer. Debut out 2025: ANIMAL SOUNDS @msrbooks and @boroughpress

Articles

10 Novels Exploring Complicated Feelings About Ambition

1 week ago | electricliterature.com | Emma Pattee

In a novel (and in life), ambition is a potent force. To want, to want, to want. It is the gasoline fueling a character to do and say all sorts of craziness. But like any explosive force, ambition – especially unfulfilled ambition – is toxic. Eats away at you. And yet, what is ambition really? Is it an individual’s honorable quest, as some say, to simply live out the totality of their potential? Or, is ambition merely a byproduct of a society that cannot separate being from having?
Tilt | Bookreporter.com

1 week ago | bookreporter.com | Emma Pattee

Sometimes pieces of writing just stick with you. The one that comes back to me at odd times (especially since I moved to the West Coast a few years ago) is Kathryn Schulz’s 2015 New Yorker article entitled “The Really Big One.” In it, she spells out in disturbing detail the likely effects of a massive earthquake in the Pacific Northwest that is frighteningly likely to occur in our lifetimes. Apparently, I’m not alone in the impact that article has had on me.
Auf der Kippe

3 weeks ago | piper.de | Emma Pattee

Roman — „Eine starke literarische Stimme“ Vogue Hardcover (22,00 €) E-Book (18,99 €)€ 22,00 inkl. MwSt. Erscheint am: 02.05.2025 Geschenk-Service Für den Versand als Geschenk können eine gesonderte Lieferadresse eingeben sowie eine Geschenkverpackung und einen Grußtext wählen. Einem Geschenkpaket wird keine Rechnung beigelegt, diese wird gesondert per Post versendet. Kostenlose Lieferung Bestellungen ab 9,00 € liefern wir innerhalb von Deutschland versandkostenfrei€ 18,99 inkl.
Emma Pattee’s music playlist for her novel Tilt

3 weeks ago | largeheartedboy.com | Emma Pattee

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Emma Pattee’s novelTilt is a captivating and powerful literary debut.
Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, March 28, 2025

3 weeks ago | shelf-awareness.com | Stephen Jones |Colum McCann |Emma Pattee |Lauren Willig

The Buffalo Hunter HunterShare with friends:Permanent Link:A long-hidden diary in which a Lutheran pastor records a strange confession reveals a mysterious horror with repercussions that span centuries in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, the chilling and original vampire novel from Stephen Graham Jones (The Only Good Indians; Don't Fear the Reaper).
Earthquake Anxiety: Living-and Writing-in Fear of the Big One

4 weeks ago | lithub.com | Emma Pattee

I did not set out to write a book about a very-pregnant woman trying to survive an earthquake. I did not set out to write a book at all. I was simply a very-pregnant woman with a horrible case of insomnia, lying awake at night imagining a massive earthquake. Would the roof cave in? With my stomach as distended as it was, would I even fit under the bed? Would I have to give birth alone, without running water or a doctor?
Being Thin Was My Dream-but So Was Writing a Novel

4 weeks ago | glamour.com | Emma Pattee

When I was in my mid-20s, I found myself in a group for women who were obsessed with being thin and who loved to diet. There wasn’t an official name for the affliction we had. We were women who spent much of our days thinking about what we’d eaten, how much we’d eaten, and what we would—or would not—eat in the future. I found dieting—something I’d been doing since I was 15 years old—thrilling and consuming. I loved the challenge. When I could restrict my eating, I felt powerful. The problem?
Why Aren’t Seismic Upgrades for Elementary Schools the Top Priority in the School Bond?

4 weeks ago | wweek.com | Emma Pattee

It’s been 10 years since Portlanders woke up to the news that their city was doomed. A July 2015 article in The New Yorker, titled “The Really Big One,” described in vivid detail how an impending Cascadia megaquake would devastate our region. This earthquake, according to the Oregon Department of Emergency Management, has a 37% chance of happening in the next 50 years. Per Olstad is a father of two living in Northeast Portland.
The Truth About Portland’s Brick Schools Is Scarier Than Fiction

4 weeks ago | wweek.com | Emma Pattee

Nobody wants to think about children being hurt or killed during an earthquake. It’s not my idea of pleasure reading, and it surely isn’t yours, either. If you’re opening this story on the bus or over morning tea, you may be tempted to close the paper and go back to doomscrolling. But the truth is that our earthquake is coming, whether we think about it or not.
Being Thin Was My Dream-But So Was Writing a Novel

1 month ago | glamour.com | Emma Pattee

When I was in my mid-twenties, I found myself in a group for women who were obsessed with being thin and who loved to diet. There wasn’t an official name for the affliction we had. We were women who spent much of our days thinking about what we’d eaten, how much we’d eaten, and what we would—or would not—eat in the future. I found dieting—something I’d been doing since I was 15 years old—thrilling and consuming. I loved the challenge. When I could restrict my eating, I felt powerful. The problem?