Emily Bernard

Emily Bernard (born 1967) is an American writer and the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.

Early life and education Emily Bernard was born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. She earned a BA and a PhD in American Studies from Yale University.

Publications The 2004 anthology Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, was edited and introduced by Bernard. She is the author of books including Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White (2010) and Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, which won the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose in 2019. The essay collection Black Is the Body was among Maureen Corrigan's "Favorite Books of 2019", and Kirkus Reviews described it as "A rare book of healing on multiple levels."

Awards and recognition 2001: The New York Times Notable Book of the Year for Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten 2006: New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age for Some of My Best Friends: Writers on Interracial Friendship 2008–09: James Weldon Johnson Fellowship in African American Studies, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 2010: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs 2019: Los Angeles Times – Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, for Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine

Selected works

Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten (2001), Knopf Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships (2004), Amistad/HarperCollins, Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs with Deborah Willis (2009), W.W. Norton Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White (2010), Yale University Press Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine (2019), Knopf