Steve Erickson
Steve Erickson
Stephen Michael Erickson, pen name Steve Erickson, is an American novelist, essayist and critic. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, and is considered an important representative of the Avantpop movement...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 April 1950
CountryUnited States of America
fixed linear
Nothing is more linear than a street; nothing has a more fixed beginning, middle, and end.
promise
Slavery was the betrayal of the American Promise at the moment that promise was made.
lend loose movies naturally paradox street streets themselves
A street is a story in asphalt - so it's a paradox that the streets are the one place where the movies play fast and loose with continuity, something to which L.A. streets lend themselves as naturally as does the city's psyche.
books frank kid rather stranger whimsical
The first books I remember having an impact on me when I was a kid were L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' books, which were much stranger than the movie: at once rather whimsical and really dark.
accompany delusions dreams driving harsh lives velocity
'The Company You Keep' is about outgrowing not just the delusions that accompany youth but the harsh certainties driving our lives and then trapping them before the years outpace the velocity of our dreams.
course history nicest nut supreme
Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the supreme nut jobs in movie history, and of course I mean that in the nicest way.
among art artists creative darkness ego light mysteries odds personal response
Among the mysteries of the creative ego is how the transcendence of what artists do is their own response to the darkness of who they are, and the same personal darkness that is at odds with the art is what propels artists to the light of what they create.
among cleavage los monica santa singular
Among the gorges and ravines that hang on Los Angeles's shoulders like a necklace, Topanga - nestled in the cleavage of the Santa Monica Mountains - is the most singular of ornaments.
along couple fantastic future seems
A modern fascination with the fantastic seems to come along every couple of generations, usually at a point when we're future saturated.
bands beaches formed imagine local los might rock since
The Doors formed on the beaches of Los Angeles, in what you might imagine is the tradition of local rock bands since the Beach Boys.
believe secret imagine
I believe novels can have secrets from their author, a notion I imagine would appall Nabokov.
inspiration kids parent
Though energy and inspiration diminish, experience grows - the theme of parents and kids, for instance.
stories want way
The material dictates the approach. I tell the stories in the way that feels natural to tell them. Certainly the last thing I want is to be "difficult."
sake fiction not-interested
To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake.