Emily Carmichael was born and raised in the vibrant city of New York, where she would later go on to excel academically. As a top-ranked English student in her graduating class at Stuyvesant High School, she demonstrated exceptional skills in the subject. Additionally, she shared the second-place ranking in Physics with one other student, showcasing her impressive range of abilities.
As a teenager, Carmichael made a significant impact by contributing two essays to Ophelia Speaks, a collection of works by adolescent girls. The book spent an impressive eighteen weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List, with her work singled out as the strongest in the collection by Salon. Her essays also garnered attention from National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, where she appeared as a featured guest to discuss issues of girlhood and modernity. In 2000, she won the prestigious Bertelsmann's World of Expression Award for her short story "Losing It".
At Harvard University, Carmichael continued to excel, earning her B.A. with honors in Painting and Literature. She distinguished herself as an artist, playwright, and theater director, writing and directing two full-length plays, as well as three short plays. Her work also included designing and sculpting clay puppets for a production of Macbeth: The Puppet Shakespeare. Her comic strip, Whiz Kids, which debuted in her high school newspaper, ran in the Harvard Crimson for over two years, earning praise from Seth MacFarlane for its artistry and Doonesbury rhythms. Her paintings and sculptures were regularly featured in student exhibitions, and she graduated with the David McCord Prize for Excellence in the Arts.
After graduating in 2004, Carmichael returned to New York City, where she began working professionally as an artist and writer. She assisted with story development on the Academy Award-nominated animated short film One Rat Short, and wrote and workshopped her new play, Madrigal's Dome, at the Manhattan Theater Club. She also served as a graphic designer for several ad and promotional campaigns, and as a set designer for the second season of the Babel Theater Project.
In 2006, Carmichael entered the MFA film program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her thesis film, The Hunter and the Swan Discuss Their Meeting, premiered at Sundance in 2011, and her subsequent short films have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, as well as international film festivals around the world.
