Isle McElroy’s debut novel, The Atmospherians, was named a New York Times Editors' Choice. Their second novel, People Collide, was named a best book of 2023 by Vulture, NPR, Vogue and was a New York Times Critics' Pick. Other writing appears in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Vulture, The Cut, The Atlantic, Esquire, and elsewhere.  

Isle is currently a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. They have received fellowships from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Tin House Summer Workshop, The Sewanee Writers Conference, and The Elizabeth George Foundation.

Isle currently teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. They have served as faculty at the Tin House Summer Workshop and delivered the 2025 Keynote address for the San Francisco Writers’ Conference. They run an annual year-long Novel Generator and regularly teach seminars on sex writing, radical honesty, magazine pitching, and more. Isle also offers book coaching and manuscript consultations.