Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse is the author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation (memoir), Contenders (novel), Come Up and See Me Sometime (short stories), and a forthcoming collection, Save Me (short stories). Tell Me Everything was a Book of the Month Club pick and has been optioned by Playground Entertainment for TV adaptation. Contenders was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and Come Up and See Me Sometime was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Paterson Fiction Award.

Erika's short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire.com, Granta.com, Ploughshares, The New York Times, One Story, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Story, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, and Shenandoah. Her work has been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize. She has written everything from book reviews for The New York Times to horoscopes for Glamour. The only thing she doesn't like writing is her bio.

Erika received her MA from CU Boulder, where she also taught creative writing. She has taught at Lighthouse since 2008, mentors for the Book Project, and is a Beacon Award winner. She has won fellowships and scholarships to the Longleaf Writers Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers Workshop, and the inaugural Amtrak Residency. 

What Erika looks for in a Book Project mentee: I believe all writers can succeed if they have an ability to learn, passion for the subject, a strong work ethic, something to say, and a great writing education. My groups follow an extensive two-year curriculum covering narrative structure and technique, and we spend a lot of time on plot and character motivation. We also collaborate to create an individualized and sustainable writing process for each mentee. I seek mentees from all backgrounds to create diverse and healthy groups.

I have a special interest in: unusual stories, feminist subjects, short stories and essays (as well as novels and memoirs), literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, dark/edgy work, antiheroes, humor, “voicey” prose (in first person or close third), strong protagonists, social realism, historical fiction, mysteries, stories about the arts and music, stories about jobs and work, crime, violence, physics, martial arts, mental states, non-US settings (or strange ones), interpersonal politics, countercultures, people behaving badly, and anything weird. I'm interested in who you are and what you have to say.