Alexis M. Wright is a writer and educator whose work interrogates memory, estrangement, and the quiet power of the things we leave behind. Her work combines personal narrative with cultural critique, often grounded in questions of family, survival, and what resists being neatly contained.

Her lyric essay “Which One is the Lifeline?” (The Common) was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2023. Her work also appears in Shenandoah, The Maine Review, the anthology Mamas, Martyrs, and Jezebels (Black Lawrence Press), and an excerpt of her memoir-in-progress was a finalist in the 2023 CRAFT Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest. She is the recipient of a fully funded 2026 Vermont Studio Center fellowship, a 2023 Tin House Scholarship, a 2024 Tin House Reading Fellowship, and a 2023 Bread Loaf Contributor Award. In 2025, she was a finalist for the Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence.

Her essays have been taught in undergraduate and graduate classrooms, and she has been invited to speak at conferences including the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), The Dalton School’s DEI Speaker Series, and the University of San Francisco’s Urban Affairs Program. A longtime educator, she has taught high school English, developed curriculum for Facing History and Ourselves, and served as Dean of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy at a New England arts boarding school. She now teaches classes on the lyric essay and creative nonfiction at The Loft, GrubStreet, and midnight & indigo.

Wright earned her MFA in Creative Writing (Nonfiction) from the University of San Francisco. A California native now living in Greater Boston, she keeps a small but loyal collection of Oakland A’s bobbleheads.

Instagram: @alexismwrightwrites
Bluesky: @alexismwright.bsky.social