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Eric Olsen

Goodreads Author

Born

in Oakland, CA, The United States

June 25

Website

http://wewantedtobewriters.com

Twitter

2bwriters

Influences

Anthony Burgess, Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, Ros Drexler, Dave Hick ...more

Member Since

May 2011

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/ericolsen

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I was born and raised in Oakland—go A’s! California. I'm a journalist, editor, and occasional novelist. My sixth non-fiction book, We Wanted to be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was released August 1, 2011. It's a series of conversations about writing, the creative process, the lit biz, and more with nearly 30 classmates and teachers at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the mid-70s. Among them are TC Boyle, Jane Smiley, John Irving, Sandra Cisneros, Allan Gurganus, Michelle Huneven, Joe Haldeman, and Jayne Anne Phillips. My co-editor is Glenn Schaeffer.

As a journalist I write mostly about culture, also health, fitness, sports, and medicine. But I'll write about anything if it's interesting, and I have. For ...more

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Eric Olsen's Blog

We Wanted to be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

In the intercepts that comprise We Wanted to be Writers, Glenn Schaeffer and I and our fellow Iowa workshoppers discuss what we learned in the Workshop back in the mid-‘70s — and what we didn’t learn, but wish they had — and what we learned in the decades after about life, art, the creative process, teaching, the lit biz, and much more. Our goal is to provide advice and counsel and analysis, maybe

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Eric Olsen’s books

Average rating: 3.79 · 623 ratings · 78 reviews · 24 distinct works • Similar authors

	America's Most Haunted: The Secrets of Famous Paranormal Places by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author), Theresa Argie (Goodreads Author) 3.79 avg rating — 232 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Concrete Countertops: Design, Forms, and Finishes for the New Kitchen and Bath by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author) (Photographer), Fu-Tung Cheng 3.99 avg rating — 146 ratings — published 2002 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author), Glenn Schaeffer, Bill Manhire (Introduction) 3.66 avg rating — 149 ratings — published 2011 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Concrete at Home: Innovative Forms and Finishes by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author), Fu-Tung Cheng 3.92 avg rating — 50 ratings — published 2005 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Anxiety: Free: The Self-Help Guide for Overcoming Anxiety and Loving Yourself 3.47 avg rating — 19 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Encyclopedia of Record Producers: An Indispensable Guide to the Most Important Record Producers in Music History by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author), Paul Verna, Eric Olsen 3.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1998 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tecumseh: Nature's Patriot liked it 3.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Intellectual American: Observations on Film, Literature, Music, and American Culture 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	This Business of Networking in the Music Industry it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1999	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	On the right track: A spectators' guide to the Olympic running events 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1984 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Eric Olsen (?)

“Your willingness to explore or confess all that you know about life emotionally. You must render yourself open, maybe painfully so, and deeply interpretive toward your own experience. Writing becomes a personal forensic. Experience, not belief or intellectual conviction, by turns prodigal and indecent and subliminal: that’s what you transfigure and clarify into story. 2. Your realization of oppositional or pivotal conflict through dramatic dialogue, never exposition, and the nemesis gets the better lines, as in real life. 3. Your discovery of a resolution that won’t be the same as the one you envisioned when you began.”
― Eric Olsen, We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop

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“Howard Gruber, a psychology professor at Rutgers, said, “One thing creative people have in common is energy. You frequently find that creative people go for a lot of walks.” “When I sit around with other poets and we talk about the times we feel like writing, often it’s after having done something physical,” Marvin told me. “One of the secrets of life is oxygen; the more you have, the better able you are to do everything, even write a poem.”29”
― Eric Olsen, We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop

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“Writer’s block comes from one’s wanting only to write good stuff. Well, the good stuff and the bad stuff are all part of the stuff. No good stuff without bad stuff.”
― Eric Olsen, We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop

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