Erin Eileen Almond grew up in East Hartford, CT, and has worked as a cashier, waitress, bartender, and pizza delivery driver. Her favorite job was at Riccardo’s Music Center, where she learned how to string guitars, repair violins, and put together a drum set. She attended the Hartford Conservatory, and is a graduate of Manchester Community-Technical College, Wesleyan University, and UC-Irvine. While still in high school she toured basements and band rooms with an all-girl heavy metal band called The Virgin Saints.

After college, Erin was employed as a proposal, marketing, and technical writer for various software companies, while also pursuing her dream of writing fiction. In 2002 she took her first class at Grub Street Writers in Boston, and in 2004 headed out to Southern California to attend the MFA program at UC-Irvine. She’s deeply indebted to the writers who challenged and championed her work in both places.

In 2006 Erin eloped with her fiancé Steve – at glamorous Somerville City Hall – and settled outside Boston. They now have three adorable children who are the smartest and most talented kids you’ll ever meet. (At least that’s what their grandparents say…) They live in a 1930’s cape bungalow filled with books, musical instruments and half-finished art projects, and travel frequently to the West Coast for work and play.

Erin’s writing is informed by her many obsessions: classical music, old houses, fairy lore, feminism, Victorian novels, violin playing, witches, and the singular delight of a well-made bed. She’s published fiction and non-fiction in various online and print journals including The Sun, Colorado Review, Normal School, and The Boston Globe, and is the recipient of a St. Botolph Emerging Artists Grant. She’s currently working on her second novel, about a young woman who emigrates to the United States from Ireland in 1849, at the height of the Great Hunger, and who may or may not be pursued by fairies.