Erika Thorkelson is a freelance journalist and writer of fiction and creative non-fiction living in Vancouver, Canada. Her work has appeared in local and national publications, including the Walrus, Chatelaine, University Affairs, Maisonneuve and Room Magazine among others (see Portfolio for details). She has been a regular contributor of arts and culture writing to the Vancouver Sun and Edmonton Journal as well as a host and operator on The Storytelling Show on Vancouver Co-op Radio. 
 
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and is currently a sessional instructor in Humanities and Creative Writing areas at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
 
As an instructor and consultant, she has worked extensively with language learners and writers of all levels both in Canada and abroad. From 2007 to 2009, she taught English in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. In 2013, she received an Access Copyright Foundation Grant to travel to Japan to continue work on a book that explores events around the 2011 tsunami.