Eric A. Olsen's Biography

I'm a journalist, editor, and occasional novelist. My sixth non-fiction book, We Wanted to be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was released August 1, 2011. It's a series of conversations about writing, the creative process, the lit biz, and more with nearly 30 classmates and teachers at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the mid-70s. Among them are TC Boyle, Jane Smiley, John Irving, Sandra Cisneros, Allan Gurganus, Michelle Huneven, Joe Haldeman, and Jayne Anne Phillips. My co-editor is Glenn Schaeffer.

As a journalist I write mostly about culture, also health, fitness, sports, and medicine. But I'll write about anything if it's interesting, and I have. For several years I was an executive editor at Time Inc. Health in San Francisco, a TimeWarner company. Later, I was an affiliate associate professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where I ran the American branch of the International Institute of Modern Letters, which advocated on behalf of censored and persecuted writers. 

I received an MFA in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where I was a Teaching/Writing Fellow. After Iowa, I was awarded a James A. Michener Fellowship for fiction. 

I always have a mystery novel or two in the works.