Tara Ison is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She is the author of three novels: Rockaway (Soft Skull Press, 2013), The List (Scribner, 2007), and A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, 1997), which was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A collection of essays, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned To Live, Love & Die at the Movies, was published by Soft Skull Press in January 2015, and was the winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her short story collection, Ball, was published by Soft Skull Press in Fall 2015. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2020 in support of a short story collection tentatively titled "The Meat Bee," after her 2018 story published in Tin House.