Bio

Erika Krouse is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her upcoming short story collection, Save Me, Stranger, will be published by Flatiron Books in January 2025. Save Me, Stranger has been hailed as “a dozen little masterpieces,” by Adam Johnson, “remarkable” by Ann Beattie, and Louise Erdrich said, “Read these stories with a buddy, because someone will have to scrape you off the floor.”

Erika is also the author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation (March 2022, Flatiron Books): winner of the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and the Housatonic Book Award for Nonfiction. Tell Me Everything is also a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Book of the Month Club pick, a People Magazine People Pick, named “Best Nonfiction of 2022” by BookPage and Kirkus Reviews, and “Best 10 Books of 2022” by both Slate and Jezebel. The memoir has been featured/reviewed in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, Airmail, The Week, Harper’s Bazaar, LitHub, Real Simple, ELLE, CrimeReads, BookPage, and others.

Erika’s novel, Contenders (Rare Bird Books), was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and appears in German with Aufbau-Verlag. Her previous short story collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime (Scribner), won the Paterson Fiction Award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the year, and is translated into six languages.

Erika’s short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire.com, Ploughshares, One Story, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Conjunctions, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Story, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, Cleaver, and Shenandoah. Her stories have been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize. Erika has also published poetry and essays in magazines such as Granta.com, and has reviewed for the New York Times Book Review.

Erika went to middle school and high school in Japan, and earned her B.A. from Grinnell College. She earned her M.A. in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also taught creative writing classes. She teaches and mentors for the Lighthouse Book Project at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and is a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence. Erika has won fellowships and scholarships to the Longleaf Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers Workshop, and the inaugural Amtrak Residency.

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Erika Krouse is a unique and fearless writer; I love her work.
—Bob Shacochis