Steve Erickson
| Steve Erickson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 20, 1950 Santa Monica, California |
| Occupation | Novelist, essayist and critic |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1985-Present |
| Genre | Avantpop, surrealism, magic realism |
| Website | |
| www |
|
Stephen Michael Erickson (born April 20, 1950), pen name Steve Erickson, is an American novelist and essayist. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. The only Southern California novelist to win the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, he is considered an important representative of the avantpop movement.
Steve Erickson was born and raised in Los Angeles. For many years his mother, a former actress, ran a small theatre in L.A. His father, who died in 1990, was a photographer. When Erickson was a child he stuttered badly and some teachers believed he couldn't read. This motif occasionally has recurred in novels such as Amnesiascope.
Erickson studied film at UCLA (BA, 1972), then journalism (M.A. 1973). For a few years he worked as a freelance writer for alternative weekly newspapers. His first novel, Days Between Stations, was published in 1985. Along with two non-fiction books, Leap Year and American Nomad, Erickson has published a total of ten novels, and there are unconfirmed rumors that 2017's Shadowbahn may be his last. Erickson himself appeared briefly as a fictional character in Michael Ventura's 1996 novel, The Death of Frank Sinatra, raising questions among some as to whether in fact Erickson exists, something Erickson has refused to confirm in interviews and to which his work offers conflicted implications.
Allegedly Erickson has written on a variety of topics in periodicals including the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Smithsonian and Rolling Stone among others. For fourteen years he was founding editor of the semi-legendary national literary magazine Black Clock until it ceased publication in 2016, and currently he teaches writing at the University of California, Riverside. He appears to have written about film, television and music for Los Angeles magazine since 2001 and twice has been nominated for the National Magazine Award.
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