ERICA OLSEN lives in the Four Corners area, where she does archives and curation work for archaeology museums. A graduate of Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Montana MFA program, she has also been a Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. Her short fiction has appeared in ZYZZYVA, High Desert Journal, and other publications, and her nonfiction pieces in magazines including Fine Books & Collections and High Country News. Her work has received awards including the 2011 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (for "Grand Canyon II," included in Recapture).
"Unsentimental stories that tell us what the American West looks
like now and what we've lost; the Grand Canyon, for instance, can
be seen only in replica after environmental catastrophe."--LIBRARY
JOURNAL
"Recapture is a living, breathing museum of natural wonders. With
writing as spare as the landscape she evokes, Olsen wades through
the detritus of the human experience and finds clarity there, and
some magic, too."--ZYZZYVA
"A gem, a small collection of stories that is a pleasure to read
and consider."--TERRAIN.ORG
"Olsen's deft use of language creates stories that exude not only
loneliness and longing, but also dark humor."--SUNDOG LIT
"These are sexy stories that are never explicit, knowing exactly
which details are necessary for their effect and describing no
more."--TOTTENVILLE REVIEW
"True to its name, Recapture grasps after lost loves, fading
histories, and shifting landscapes to bring us an expertly curated
series of human exhibits in an expansive, outdoor museum."--THE
MUSEUM OF AMERICANA
"Erica Olsen gives us the dream life of the Southwest in this
striking collection, a landscape told in language as spare and
pungent and exacting as the desert itself. A swift and lovely debut
from a writer of real gifts."--KEVIN CANTY, author of Where the
Money Went
"These sly, heartbreaking stories capture the modern West, where
the past is ever-present and the future is already here."--ALISON
BAKER, author of How I Came West, and Why I Stayed
"Beneath their polished surfaces, Erica Olsen's stories are
subversive, sometimes darkly funny, and always disquieting. This
accomplished writer really knows her way through the tricky zone
between truth and falsehood where art is made."--SUSAN LOWELL
HUMPHREYS, author of Ganado Red
"A sharp, wise new voice from the American West, Erica Olsen is the
real thing. As wild as David Foster Wallace or George Saunders and
as tender as James Salter or Alice Munro, Olsen's stories are
hilarious, painful, and achingly lovely."--AMANDA EYRE WARD, author
of Close Your Eyes
"Like all good narratives, Erica Olsen's 'Grand Canyon II' suggests
great consequence. The past is another country. The task of memory
is impossible. No one exists and nothing ever happened. But
somewhere in your brain, a beautiful lie is being spun..."--SARAH
MANGUSO, author of The Guardians
"Recapture is like a lost map of the backcountry, detailing the
forgotten places where secrets shove up through the dust, pieces of
lives demanding to be made whole. The territory is endlessly
illuminating and constantly surprising, revealing a master
storyteller at work."--KIM TODD, author of Tinkering with Eden
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