AUTHOR PROFILE
Erin Elizabeth Williams has two degrees in religion that she doesn’t use, a dead cat named Kurt Vonnekat, and a house from 1890 that leaks when it rains. She co-wrote a book chapter on The Witcher 3, and her fiction has appeared in some other cool places like Little Old Lady Comedy, JAKE, and God’s Cruel Joke. Find her on Instagram @erinelizabethyo or at erinelizabethwilliams.com.
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Erin's work appeared in Pond 90
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Why do you write?
Somewhere around third grade I wrote a book about dust bunnies who were at war with the dirty socks under somebody’s bed because I thought it was funny. It was really hard to follow that up with anything better, so I didn’t write for the next 15 years. By the time I hit my mid-20s, I realized I didn’t need to write anything better but I did need to write.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I live in a house that has seen decades of horrendous design choices. Green carpet, drop ceilings, faux-wood paneling, thick white paint over original wood trim. A lot of creative energy gets poured into figuring out how I can undo everything the previous owners did and bring its original life back. I spend a lot of time in a dark basement wearing a respirator mask working with harsh chemicals and power tools. I also try and get into some of the TV productions that come to town. I pop up in The Gilded Age behind Nathan Lane.
Who is your favorite author and why?
You’d think it would be Kurt Vonnegut because I named my cat after him, but it’s Jasper Fforde. Shades of Grey (not that one, the other one) has been my favorite book for a long time. He takes absurdity very seriously.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
Everything starts with pen and paper. I’ll take a notebook, a pen, and a glass of bourbon outside and spend an hour scribbling in the sun. If I like something by the end, it gets typed up and that’s where I do the bulk of my editing because I can’t read my own handwriting. Rereading every word to type it out means I have to think through the story again, see the weak spots, and fix them.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
My family went to a big wedding when I was a kid, and the centerpieces had live goldfish swimming in tiny glass bowls. My brother and I each took one home, cradling the bowls the entire 4-hour drive, and put them in bigger tanks, making them mingle with minnows we’d already had from a pet store down the street. I like to think they lived long, happy lives after that, but I can’t even remember if we even gave them names.