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Steve Erickson - Biography:

Steve Erickson - Biography:: Encyclopedia II - Steve Erickson - Biography:

Steve Erickson was born and brought up as an only child in Granada Hills, Los Angeles. His mother runs a small theatre in L.A, his father (died in 1990) was a photographer. When he was a child he stuttered badly; this motif often recurs in his novels. He wrote his first story when he was 7, and he was accused of plagiarizing it. Because of his stuttering some teachers believed that he couldn’t read at all. When he was 15 he was already sending his stories to publishers, without any results. At 17 he wrote his first novel. He studie ...

Steve Erickson: Encyclopedia II - Steve Erickson - Biography:

Steve Erickson - Biography:

He wrote his first story when he was 7, and he was accused of plagiarizing it. Because of his stuttering some teachers believed that he couldn’t read at all. When he was 15 he was already sending his stories to publishers, without any results. At 17 he wrote his first novel. He studied journalism at UCLA (B.A., 1972; M.A. 1973).

For a few years he worked as a staff-writer for the Automobile Club of Southern California. At the same time he started his freelancing for the alternative weeklies. He struggled hard to get published, but only his sixth novel Days Between Stations was finally accepted in 1985. When it was issued, he destroyed his previous five. When asked about them he answers that they were ‘more personal, yet less narrative’.

Since 1985 he has published seven novels and two non-fiction books: Leap Year and American Nomad, which are both chronicles of his cross country journeys taken during presidential elections in 1988 and 1996 respectively. They contain Erickson’s comments on politics, current events, music, film, literature, and, most of all, on contemporary America. They feature some characters from his novels.

He has written on a variety of topics in periodicals including the New York Times, Esquire, L.A. Weekly and Rolling Stone. He had a column in L.A Reader. In 1998/99 he published his essays on culture and politics in Salon. Among his influences he mentions first of all William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury, Go Down Moses); then Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Philip K. Dick Thomas Pynchon and Bob Dylan.

He is married and has a son (born in 1998).