[2] 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.

[4][5] Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College, where she was a student of Rick Moody.

In addition, she has taught UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program.

[8] Work by Ison has appeared in Tin House, Salon,[9] O, The Oprah Magazine,[10] Electric Literature,[6] The Kenyon Review,[11] The Rumpus,[12] Nerve, Black Clock, TriQuarterly,[13] The Santa Monica Review, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly,[14][15] The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly,[16] the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune,[17] the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies.

She is also the co-writer, with Neil Landau, of the 1991 cult classic movie Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.