She is the author of the poetry collection To End a Conversation, which has been featured on CBC Radio and on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Her work has been published in literary journals across Canada, and, recently, she was shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award, a YWCA Young Woman of Distinction Award and a Regina Mayor’s Art Award. Riess also works as a freelance journalist, having written for many newspapers and magazines, including the Globe and Mail and Canadian Geographic. She has travelled across North America, working on documentaries that have aired worldwide on networks such as the A&E Biography Channel, History Television and CBC. Riess was the lead writer on the bestselling Saskatchewan Book of Everything.