People First: Emily Wrote a Book!

An elementary teacher by education, marketing was never the plan for Emily.

Emily in her first classroom as a French teacher

But you know what they say about the best laid plans, and after a career pivot in 2016, Emily started paving a different path as she searched for a more fulfilling role that matched her skills and interests.

Immediately after teaching, she gathered some of her former female students for a small group called “Girl Talk” where they met weekly to discuss issues relevant to pre-teen girls: social media, cell phones, bullying, friendship, boys. It ran for a full year and was a sign of things to come. At the same time, she took up weightlifting and running as a way to productively fill the rest of her mandatory soul-searching of early 20-something life and worked part time in a local artist’s gift shop.

All of her experiences would combine forces as she started a women’s personal training business and co-founded a weightlifting and body positivity program for teen girls, Girls Gone Buff. From these business ventures as well as her own experiences, she discovered a deep interest in body image and beauty culture for girls and women, recalling times her former 5th grade students would come in from recess upset about teasing on the playground about their faces, bodies, or skin.

As a trainer, she had a front row seat to women ranging in age from 14 to 60+, all expressing similar frustrations with their bodies and the way they felt about themselves. It became a central topic in her work, but it was also something she could deeply relate to.

Emily leading a women’s discussion group on body image and self-esteem

Simultaneously, she was learning a lot about marketing and consumer psychology as she ran her own businesses. Relying on her own creativity as well as attending seminars and online workshops, she eventually started handling marketing projects for a friend’s business and discovered yet another area of interest.

Fast forward to 2021 when Emily stepped into a full-time role at Prism after handling occasional one-off projects for a few years prior.

While she was no longer working with girls and women, the topics still weighed heavily on her mind, and ever the writer and creator, she was always writing blogs and making content alongside her involvement at Prism.

Then, in the summer of 2024, a friend and fellow business-owner from Emily’s time as a trainer called her and asked if she’d be interested in joining a group of writers all writing their first book.

“As a writer, I’ve obviously always wanted to write a book, but I kind of pictured it going down a lot differently, so this call really caught me off guard,” Emily says.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she said yes and the group began meeting every other week to check in and keep each other accountable to their respective projects.

“It’s not like I had been writing a book for years, per se, but I did have a lot of content and small writings built up from years of Instagram and blogging and stuff, so I basically just combed through all of that and used that as a starting point.”

From there, she refined existing pieces and wrote several new ones, all centering around her personal thoughts and experiences with her body and the beauty standards placed on women, but also with a strong sense of encouragement to change the narrative and invite girls and women to be a part of changing the system so heavily weighing on them.

The Shape of You was released on July 2nd and is named for the second chapter in the book and a core belief Emily found for herself and wants to pass on to others:

“I really think we all have these unique, individual shapes and that we fit somewhere so specific to us in the world and that is what we should be celebrating: our uniqueness. Not trying to all look the same and match some ever-changing ‘trend’ or beauty ideal.”

Emily’s book is self-published and available on Amazon. She also writes an accompanying blog, also called “The Shape of You” that can be found here.

We’re so proud to have a team with interests and passions outside of their roles at Prism, and we strive to give space to those things as we honor each team member’s individual shape, knowing how important it is to the larger picture not only at Prism, but in the world.