Public Biography
Emily Nutella is a contributing opinion columnist for The New York Time5, where she writes “What’s All This Fuss?,” a semi-regular column addressing the issues she believes are being dangerously misunderstood by the American public.
Ms. Nutella holds a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education from the College of New Rochelle (1974) and a Master of Education from Mercy College (1981). She spent thirty-one years as a third-grade teacher at P.S. 16 in Yonkers, New York, where she was twice named Teacher of the Year by the Yonkers Federation of Teachers and once received a formal letter of concern from the principal regarding a parent-teacher night presentation on the dangers of “euthanasia in Asia,” which she had misread from a pamphlet about youth in Asia.
Her column began as a letter to the editor of the Yonkers Herald Statesman in 2019. The letter, a 1,400-word objection to what she believed was a proposal to put “violins in schools” (the article had been about violence in schools), was forwarded to The New York Time5 by an editor who called it “the most passionately reasoned argument for something that wasn’t happening that I have ever read.” She has written the column since 2020.
Ms. Nutella is the author of It’s the Principle of the Thing (self-published, 2022), a collection of her columns with a foreword she wrote herself. The book includes a seven-page errata section that she insists was the publisher’s idea.
She lives in Yonkers with her cat, Mr. Buttons, and describes herself as “a concerned citizen who reads.” She wears reading glasses on a beaded chain and owns a hearing aid that she maintains is “perfectly fine” despite what she characterizes as a coordinated campaign by her audiologist, her nephew, and the editorial board to suggest otherwise.
Selected Columns
- “What’s All This Fuss About Endangered Feces?” (March 2025) — a passionate defense of the nation’s sewage infrastructure, which she believed was under federal attack; the article had been about endangered species
- “The Supreme Court Has No Business Ruling on Sax Education” (October 2025) — a stirring argument for the importance of music programs; the case had been about sex education
- “Why Is the Government Spending Millions on Nuclear Warheads When Children Need Hats?” (January 2026) — the article had been about nuclear wareheads, a proposed warehouse modernization program
- “Not All Heroes Wear Crepes” (March 2026) — a defense of crepe-makers as unsung American heroes; the phrase had been “not all heroes wear capes,” a popular expression about everyday heroism
- “Emily Nutella, Told That Millions of Americans Undergo Barium Enemas Each Year, Demands to Know Why We Are Burying So Many Enemies” (April 2026) — a passionate call for conflict resolution and civility, prompted by an article about a routine diagnostic imaging procedure she misread as “bury ’em enemy”
Editor’s note: Ms. Nutella’s columns are published with a standing correction policy. Updates appear at the conclusion of each piece.