Essie Chambers is an author and award-winning independent producer. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, and Baldwin for the Arts. Previously, she worked as a television executive, and was a producer on the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Descendant, which was released by the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company and Netflix in 2022. Essie also won the Barnes & Noble Discover prize.
Swift River, Essie’s debut novel, was Longlisted for the ALA/Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Center For Fiction’s First Novel prize, was a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick and a national bestseller. It’s a sweeping family saga about the complicated bond between mothers and daughters, the disappearance of a father, and the long hidden history of a declining New England mill town.
