Elena Passarello is a writer, a performer, and the recipient of a Whiting Award. Her essays on performance, pop culture, and the natural world have been translated into six languages. Recent essays appear in the New York Times Book Review, McSweeney’s, National Geographic, Paris Review, Audubon and Best American Science and Nature Writing. In 2019, Outside named her one of the “25 Essential Women Authors Writing about the Wild.”

She is the author of two collections; the most recent of which, Animals Strike Curious Poses, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. It made the Best Books of 2017 lists from several publications including the Guardian, Publisher’s Weekly, and the New York Times Book Review, and it received the Oregon Book Award for nonfiction. In 2019, Lithub listed Animals Strike Curious Poses as one of the best essay collections of the decade. Her book on Elvis Presley’s films and his cultural legacy will be released by Penguin Press in 2026.

Passarello directs the MFA program at Oregon State University, and she also teaches at Sewanee Writers Conference, the Kenyon Writers Workshops, Convivio, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been supported by MacDowell, the Whiting Foundation, Oregon State Humanities Council, Oregon Literary Fellowships, the Hambidge Center, Willapa Bay Artist Residencies, Storyknife, Grub Street, and the Breadloaf Writers Conference.

She maintains an active speaking and performing career, reading and lecturing at several venues annually. You can hear her weekly on 150 public radio stations across America, as the co-host of PRX’s culture and variety program, LiveWire !

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