Brianna Wiest (born 1992) is an online essayist, motivational writer, and poet. She studied professional writing at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, graduating in 2013, and was the editor of the student newspaper there. Initially, her degree was intended to lead to a career in the publishing industry. The viral success of her online publications during and after her studies led instead to a writing career. Her publications center around popular psychology, mindfulness, relationships, reflection, and self-improvement. After 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think was published as a collection of online essays in 2016, she has written other self-help content as books, including The Mountain Is You (2020) and The Pivot Year. Her books have sold over one million copies worldwide.

Because this book is mostly written in first person, Wiest’s creates a voice that is present throughout and presented as “hers.” Although inevitably a narrative construct, Wiest’s use of the self links her writing directly to her personal experience (or her experience as projected in the essays). Wiest emphasizes the importance of perseverance, which she links to her personal experiences of rejection and directional change in her career.