Biography

Erin McGraw is the author of two works of fiction, Bodies at Sea (1989) and Lies of the Saints (1996), which was listed as a Notable Book for 1996 by The New York Times. Kirkus Reviews said that her first collection displayed “a sure hand and an even voice busily at work documenting the struggles of regular people trying to lead ordinary lives. At her best, McGraw encourages us to see sainthood in its human context, relevant to the most mundane experiences…Without rancor, these poignant moral tales gently go beyond most family fiction, they would merit our attention even if that were their only distinction.” McGraw is the recipient of Yaddo and Wallace Stegner Fellowships, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist grant, the Pushcart Prize, and the Boyce Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Cincinnati, where she serves as associate professor of English.

“After spending the last several years working on novels, I find myself writing stories again. The working title for this group of tales is “The Good Life,” since they explore what we mean by that phrase. Material comfort? Spiritual expansion? Do the categories need to be exclusive?”

“The seed for this project came from watching a television program about people who have chucked their corporate careers in order, usually, to open B&Bs. Week after week the show’s host chirpily interviewed these exhausted-looking people who insisted they’d never been happier, even though they wer getting up at five every morning and rarely had time to walk around their pretty property. I got to thinking about trade-offs, and the stories began to present themselves.”