Tess’s fiction and essays have appeared in Joyland, Blue Mesa Review, Permafrost Magazine, Five on the Fifth, The Missoula Independent and more. She was the recipient of Blue Mesa Review’s 2020 Summer Nonfiction Contest and Montana Quarterly's 2016 Big Snowy Prize for Nonfiction.
She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s MFA program, where she was awarded the College of Liberal Arts Travel Grant, the Gesell Fellowship, and twice the O’Rourke Travel Grant. Previously, Tess co-directed the Montana Book Festival and taught art in rural Montana, both in a small public school and with the Art Mobile of Montana.
Currently, Tess is focusing on community in her rural Montana hometown, teaching writing, renovating a 110-year old bank and organizing to build a skatepark. She is at work on a collection of essays about rural Montana.