AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR & ZINESTER!
Emilly Prado is a multi-genre writer whose work explores identity, memory, inheritance, and the systems that shape our lives. Whether through her award-winning essay collection Funeral for Flaca, her nonfiction book Examining Assimilation, or the zines she’s been crafting since her teens, Emilly uses storytelling as a tool for reflection, resistance, and connection. Her writing often blends personal narrative with social critique, informed by a background in award-winning journalism, cultural criticism, and degrees in both Creative Writing and Child, Youth, and Family Studies. Currently revising a mental health memoir and writing a near-future cli-fi novel set in Mexico, she is seeking literary representation. See her books, zines, and writing clips.
BOOKS
Funeral for Flaca, 2021
2022 PACIFIC NORTHWEST BOOK AWARD WINNER
Funeral for Flaca is an exploration of things lost and found—love, identity, family—and the traumas that transcend bodies, borders, cultures, and generations. Emilly Prado retraces her experience coming of age as a prep-turned-chola-turned-punk in this collection that is one-part memoir-in-essays, and one-part playlist, zigzagging across genres and decades, much like the rapidly changing and varied tastes of her youth. Emilly spends the late 90’s and early aughts looking for acceptance as a young Chicana growing up in the mostly-white suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Portland, Oregon in 2008. Ni de aquí, ni de allá, she tries to find her place in the in between. She captures the painful reality of what it means to lose and find your identity, many times over again. For anyone who has ever lost their way as a child or as an adult, Funeral for Flaca unravels the complex layers of an unpredictable life, inviting us into an intimate and honest journey profoundly told with humor and heart. (Future Tense Books, July 2021.) | Media kit | Recent press and excerpts
“Utterly vulnerable, bold, and unique” —Ms. Magazine
“I felt these essays deep in my heart. Funeral for Flaca by Emilly Prado is like a Chicana punk rock ballad in prose. Soulful and brave, these essays of Prado’s life made me feel less lonely, less outcasted, and more seen—and isn’t that why we come to books in the first place?“
“It is a beautiful book, told phenomenally.”
Examining Assimilation, 2018
Emilly’s first book was a nonfiction work at the intersections of identity and U.S. history for youth audiences grades 7-12. The book broke down complex concepts like assimilation, culture, and acculturation through various lens and in digestible snippets for young audiences. The book was part of a Racial Literacy series. “Did you know that the United States has the highest immigrant population in the world? You may have heard the phrase, We are a nation built by immigrants, but that saying doesn’t tell the full story. Students will examine this popular phrase by retracing the immigrant journey within the United States and investigating the concept of cultural assimilation. What does it mean to be American? As the United States continues to grow and change, students can become better-informed citizens by looking at the immigrant experience and understanding the roots of American identities.” (Enslow Publishing, June 2018.)
ZINES (SELECTED)
American, Us, 2022
AMERICAN, US is a battlecry exploring boundaries, migration, and resilience through poetry, prose, and illustration. Authors Andres Mendoza and Emilly Prado weave experimental poetry and prose, and play with genre, to invite readers into a conversation about their distinct yet parallel American experiences navigating correctional and psychiatric institutions, family history, and shifting definitions of home. Artwork by Marco Acosta, Jesus Torralba, and Manuel Villagran brings the vibrancy of the project to life. This chapbook is the culminating artistic endeavor of Morpheus Youth Project, a non-profit that has provided safe, culturally-relevant programming to build healthy communities for more than a decade and through which each contributor was connected. (Morpheus Youth Project, 2022.)
OUTSET: Women and Non-Binary BIPOC in Punk Rock, 2020.
OUTSET is a zine that highlights the women and non-binary Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color who played a vital role in the punk rock movement. This zine zooms in on the early years; 1970s-1990s and features over a dozen punks of color! All artists will be depicted with hand-drawn illustrations made by Emilly Prado. This is the fourth edition of the zine—the first edition was created in 2015.
Con las dos manos, 2017.
This personal bilingual zine was completed during the month of January 2017 which writer Emilly Prado spent as an artist-in-residence in her parents’ home state of Michoacán, Mexico. The residency occurred at the Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology in Maravatío and was made possible in part to professional development grant funding from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. This zine explores the landscape of Mexico in relation to familial history, homelands, and identity, and is comprised of three parts: Diez/Ten, Para las Marias/For the Marias, and La nopalito/El Nopalito. Each section is accompanied by a digital illustration and photograph, all by Emilly as well.
Looking for Emilly’s Journalism Bylines?
Dive deeper into Emilly’s writing — from personal essays to cultural criticism and “Family Ties,” the multimedia fellowship project shown.
