About Erica Kitchen

I’m inspired by genre-bending and trope transplants, and I can rarely complete a story without adding a supernatural or surrealist bent. I strive to bring a sense of authenticity and normalcy to the LGBTQ+ characters birthed from the community in which I am a part. I invest fully in the worlds I create to the point that I dabble with other mediums, such as experimentation with music, lyrics, graphic design, and recipe creation. My personal philosophies towards writing are: human connection anchors even the most abstract of stories; messy, imperfect characters are the most rewarding to develop; we need more happy endings; always include a woman with a shaved head; and the longer the title, the funnier it is.

Biography

I am a writer from Logan County primarily penning fiction. Whether they be novels, short stories, faux recipe blog entries, or song lyric booklets for a fictional band, my focus is telling stories about human emotions—both big and small—through the lens of the weird and supernatural. I’ve been a lifelong writer; I have a vivid memory of dictating a short story about an imaginary friend-turned-real to my mother while she typed it up on a computer running Windows XP in the structureless abyss of WordPad. I completed my first novel at age 16—which will never see the light of day if I have anything to do about it—and then my second at 18. I went to college and, naturally, majored in English, walking away with a BA in Professional Writing. For many years, my relationship to writing grew tenuous, and while my brain would always slip into fictional worlds with any spare second of time, my output was thin. With a set goal of writing (and editing through to a second draft) one longform piece a year, I am entering my third year of this promise successful. Three novels, a novella, and one short story collection later, my creative brain is in the middle of a renaissance.

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Other Creative Skills

Music: New (Includes experimental, electronic)