Eric Olsen

Eric Olsen was born and raised in Oakland -- go As! -- California and started college as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, like all ambitious young freshmen at the time. His interest in medicine lasted about half-way through his first quiz in orgo. He finished college many years and false starts later with a BA in Comparative Literature (Classical Greek, a long story and we wont get into that here). He received his MFA in fiction in 1977. With Glenn Schaeffer, he co-founded in 2000 and then directed the International Institute of Modern Letters, a literary think tank that helped writers who were victims of censorship and persecution. Eric also helped establish the first American City of Asylum, in Las Vegas, an Institute program. The Institute also ran programs to support emerging writers in this country and abroad. Prior, Eric served as executive editor of custom publishing at Time Inc. Health, a TimeWarner company, and he worked as a freelance journalist. Eric has published hundreds of magazine articles, a few short stories, and six nonfiction books, including We Wanted to Be Writers. He served as a Teaching/Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop (1976-77), and after leaving, he received a James A. Michener Fellowship for fiction. Most recently, his writing has delved into art and design. Eric continues, despite common sense of family and friends, to work on a novel and screenplay. He does sometimes wish hed toughed it out in orgo. "