Jess Filippi has been escaping into books since she was a child and playing with words her entire life.

She’s been editing other people’s work since middle school, when she took on her first editorial project, a Quantum Leap fanfic novel written by her best friend.

Her publishing background spans staff roles at the Modern Language Association and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Media along with freelance work for Kirkus Reviews and several scientific journals, but her favorite jobs were working as a lab aide/camp counselor at outdoor learning labs in Long Island state parks and teaching horseback riding lessons in Texas.

Citizen science lights her up, and she’s pursued continuing education in botany at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and completed Texas Master Naturalist training.

She wants to learn about every single thing.

She is the Founding Editor of Embers Journal, a regenerative nonfiction journal devoted to stories of practical hope in reconnecting to ourselves, each other, and to the more-than-human world.

She is the editor behind Beacon Editing, working with authors to develop book manuscripts that change the story of where we’re headed by shifting perspectives, restoring connection, and changing what’s possible.

She’s currently at work on a novel inspired by a Robert Plant solo track and writes essays and short nonfiction about a lot of different topics but is mostly interested in finding ways to communicate the ineffable.

She lives outside Houston, where she enjoys live music, showing her cat all the books she brought home from the library, and bird watching with her rescue horse.