Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is the author of the critically acclaimed book Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, which came out in 2025 from Simon & Schuster. Her biography was named one of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2025 and was hailed as a best book of the year by NPR, Time, Kirkus, The Washington Post, Library Journal, New York Post and others. It received raves from Oprah Daily, The Atlantic, Elle, Forbes, Harper's Bazaar, and on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Claire McCardell was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, selected as an Amazon Editor’s pick for Best History, and chosen by the Maryland Center for the Book, in partnership with the Library of Congress, as its Great Reads selection for the 2026 National Book Festival. The New York Times called Claire McCardell an essential read, writing: “In the hands of Dickinson, this is more than just the biography of a fashion revolutionary: It is a story of the fight for women’s identity and, incidentally, the birth of an American industry.”

Elizabeth is working on her second book—a true crime object biography about the famous Ruby Slippers from the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” She broke news about this infamous heist for a Washington Post Magazine cover story in 2019, and her book is forthcoming from Dutton in 2027.

Elizabeth’s writing encompasses cultural criticism, narrative nonfiction, investigative journalism, short fiction, and memoir. She’s been widely published in places like The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and The Southern Review. Her nonfiction earned recognition in The Best American Essays anthology and she’s a two-time recipient of the Independent Artist Award in fiction from The Maryland State Arts Council. She was a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and in 2023, Elizabeth became the first literary artist to win Maryland’s prestigious Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize, given in recognition of artists who demonstrate excellence in mastery of craft, depth of artistic exploration, and unique vision. Elizabeth teaches graduate level writing, and lives in Baltimore with her family and a very opinionated corgi named Buddy.