✸ MEET ME ✸
CONTACT
The Gersh Agency
TV Literary: David Rubin
Film: Jonathan Martin
Management: Anastasiya Kukhtareva
THE HIGHLIGHTS
I’m into writing, movies, cats, cheese, traveling, death positivity, the Golden Girls, and productive procrastination. In no particular order.
My debut feature film is MOON MANOR. I co-wrote, directed and produced the movie with my BFF since middle school Machete Bang Bang as the duo “KnifeRock.” We sold the movie to Showtime. Cool! Read more about it here.
My next scripted project is the original series YOUR DARKNESS IS SHINING, an erotic thriller about obsession, dark passion, the Nineties, and skiing, produced by Atomic Monster, and our studio is Wiip. Yay.
I’m originally from rural Nevada, earned a Journalism degree in Reno, and have freelanced as a writer and photographer for Flaunt, Uproxx and Billboard, among others.
My creative nonfiction has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference 2023 Katharine Bakeless Nason Award in Nonfiction, the Key West Literary Seminar, and I’m the recipient of the Gorrell Award for Emerging Writers. My essay “Not A Ghost Town, But For Me It’s Haunted” was a finalist for the Newfound Prose Prize and CRAFT Literary Creative Nonfiction Prize. In 2022 I performed my storytelling show “Two Truths And A Lie” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
My screenplays and short films have been selections of Austin Film Festival, ScreenCraft, Marfa Film Festival, Moonfaze Feminist Film, Atlanta Film Festival, and many more.
I’m based in Los Angeles.
MORE THAN JUST THE HIGHLIGHTS
An Interview With Myself
Me: Name three of your favorite things.
Erin: The first night of winter that smells like cold, hanging out with my elders, train whistles, dark comedies, waking up in a new country, the smell of clean laundry.
Me: That was more than three.
Erin: I’m bad at math.
Me: Is it weird to be interviewed by yourself?
Erin: Not as weird as people writing their bio in the third person.
Me: Right? Like, we know you wrote that, hello!
Erin: Exactly.
Me: So what are some of your accomplishments you want people to know about?
Erin: This is where I should reach deep into my past before I started failing upwards as an adult and say things like I interned twice at Rolling Stone, published my honors thesis travel narrative and had a marketing job with a corner office and did a bunch of other overachieving in my 20s. And I paid for my Journalism degree at the University of Nevada, Reno on Miss America pageant scholarships, but usually when I mention pageants it seems to discredit all the previous stuff in people’s minds. So let me end by saying my work recently got rejected by Tin House, the Sundance Lab, Venice Film Festival Giornate degli Autori, and Short of the Week. They were last round rejections, which are like the “no” that’s a “yes.” So, hooray.
Me: You went to college in Reno? That’s weird.
Erin: I grew up in a tiny town called Gardnerville and went to college in nearby Reno. I fucking love Nevada so don’t say anything about it.
Me: What was living in LA like for you?
Erin: For a while I had that job where I sat in a glass box in white underwear at the fka Standard Hotel. It’s like an LA rite of passage. I made my first vlog while I was in the box. Which got me fired, but they didn’t make me take down the episodes.
Me: You just sat there? Sounds like a scam.
Erin: I think it was “art.” The observer being the observed.
Me: Sounds deep.
Erin: I’m trying to frame it that way. The hotel is now defunct, so I guess I should let it go like they let me go.
Me: Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Erin: CATS!! But not so guilty there, just love (i.e. obsession). Also, historical romance novels. Naughty courtesans and dashing knights, that sort of thing.
Me: That’s embarrassing. You shouldn’t tell anyone that. Talk about something else.
Erin: I love talking abut traveling! I moved to New Zealand after college. Then I moved back to Reno for a year and wrote a novel and indulged in a little misspent youth. Then my novel got some attention so I moved to Los Angeles because it seemed better than Reno. I was somewhat correct. Traveling is how I make sense of the world. Some of my favorite trips have been to Laos, Israel, Brazil, and Morocco, to name a few. Getting paid to travel has always seemed like the best thing that can happen in life, and I still pinch myself that my day job includes traveling the world to document people, places, events.
Me: How do you process your travels? Writing about them? Photos?
Erin: I tell the stories of places I’ve seen. I’ve performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, Tartle At The Duke, The Moth, Back Pocket and Spark Off Rose.
Me: Haven’t you started a podcast or a non-profit or anything like that? Seems like everyone does that these days. It would be very on-brand for you.
Erin: Glad you asked! I’ve volunteered with WriteGirl since 2015. I’m the founder of Six Veils Social Club, we throw events in conjunction with non-profits. I also have a Polaroid and Poem project, where I write impromptu poems and take Polaroids for hire.
Me: Anything else you want the world to know?
Erin: Yes. Since you can’t be perfect, be fun. That’s one of my mottos. And find me on Instagram at @justeringranat. I like to hear from you. Really.