Cai Emmons was the author of six novels: This Mother's Son, The Stylist, Weather Woman, Sinking Islands, Livid, and Unleashed, and one short story collection, Vanishing. Winner of the Oregon Book Award, the Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest, a Nautilus Award, and finalist for the Missouri Review Editor's Prize as well as the Narrative Magazine Fiction Prize, Emmons was also short-listed for the Sarton Award and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her essays and stories appeared in such publications as TriQuarterly, LitHub, Electric Literature, The LA Times, and Ms. Magazine. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale College, Emmons held MFA degrees in film and fiction. She taught at several colleges and universities, most recently in the University of Oregon's Creative Writing Program. After living with ALS for two years, she ended her life using Oregon's Death with Dignity laws in January 2023.