Andrew Ervin

Andrew Ervin (born 26 March 1971) is an American author, critic and editor.

Biography

Andrew Ervin was born in Media, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Budapest, Hungary, Illinois, and Louisiana and now resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is married to the flutist Elivi Varga.

Education and career

Ervin holds a BA in Philosophy and Religion (Goucher College), an MS in English (Illinois State University) and MFA in Fiction (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). He was the first-ever Southern Review Resident Scholar at Louisiana State University.^[1] He was previously the Kratz Writer-in-Residence at Goucher College.^[2] He currently teaches part-time in the Honors Program at Temple University and is a 2016-2017 Digital Studies Fellow at Rutgers University-Camden.

As a fiction writer, his short stories have appeared in the literary journals Conjunctions, Fiction International, The Southern Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Monkeybicycle and Golden Handcuffs Review. His fiction has been included in the anthologies Chicago Noir (2005), Mythtym (2008), Topograph (2010), and Gigantic Worlds (2014).^[3]

His story “The Light of Two Million Stars” in Conjunctions was listed among the “distinguished submissions” in Best American Short Stories 2010, edited by Richard Russo.^[4]

Selections of his fiction appear online at Hobart,^[5] Significant Objects,^[6] Revolver^[7] and Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.^[8]

His first book was a collection of novellas, Extraordinary Renditions, published in 2010. Publisher’s Weekly included Extraordinary Renditions on its list of the “Best Books of 2010.”^[9] That book was a long-list finalist for The Story Prize^[10]

Ervin’s debut novel Burning Down George Orwell’s House was published in 2015^[11] by Soho Press. The Paris-based publishing house Gallimard has acquired the French translation rights^[12]

As a critic, Ervin has published hundreds of book reviews and essays in USA Today, New York Times Book Review, The Believer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, American Book Review and elsewhere. Selections of his critical essays can be found online at Salon,^[13] The Rumpus,^[14] Conversational Reading ^[15] and Publishing Perspectives.^[16]

His first book-length work of criticism, a “cultural and experiential history of video games, from Tennis for Two (1958) to Minecraft and beyond, drawing on art criticism and interviews with seminal game creators” is forthcoming from Basic Books.^[17]

As an editor, Ervin interned at the publishing houses Dalkey Archive Press and FC2. He guest edited two issues of American Book Review. He has worked at the literary magazines Monkeybicycle, Ninth Letter and The Southern Review and is currently a contributing editor at Philadelphia Review of Books.

Published works

Novel

• Burning Down George Orwell’s House (Soho Press, 2015), ISBN 978-1616954949

Novellas

• Extraordinary Renditions: 3 Novellas (Coffee House Press, 2010), ISBN 978-1566892469

Criticism

• "Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World" (forthcoming from Basic Books, 2017)

References

External links

• Official website