At seven, Emily was piling five kids on to her red-and-white-tandem Schwinn and steering the whole damn lot down Highway 50. Approaching fifty, her favorite hat still reads, “Let’s Just Go!” Emily is a professor of English and has taught writing to single moms, ex-cons, military vets, and other (non) traditional community college students in southern Indiana for nearly twenty years.  She began her college career as a pianist and earned her BA in Creative Writing with a Music Minor and her MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. Emily then earned her PhD in English from the University of Kansas. And in 2026, she became a certified facilitator with Women Writing for (a) Change-Bloomington because she believes in the transformative power of women’s stories.

Emily is the author of three books (Fugue, Instrumental, and Tattle Tales), the founder and editor of Bobo Books, and co-editor (with Amy L.Cornell) of Tandem, a national literary magazine for women by women. Additionally, Emily has published individual works in literary magazines, such as Hermeneutic Chaos, december, Seneca Review, and Redivider, and has performed her work from Nebraska to New York to Italy and back to her own local, NPR station. A sometimes lyricist, Emily also delights in collaborating with composers and has worked with Don Freund, Traci Mendel, and Larry Groupe, and welcomes proposals for future collaborations with others through her contact page or at dr.emily.bobo@gmail.com.

She can’t wait to read your story!