Janice Erlbaum

In 2006, Villard/Random House published her first book, Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir. An explicit look back at her teenage years spent in shelters and group homes.[9] It was awarded a spot on the New York Public Library’s “25 to Remember” list for 2006.^[10] Her second memoir, Have You Found Her, was published by Villard/Random House in 2008; it details her return to the shelter as an adult volunteer, and the deep relationship she forged with a brilliant, damaged girl she called “Samantha.”^[11]

She has also contributed, in recent years, to McSweeneys.org,

• I, Liar (2015, Thought Catalog Books)[3]
• Lucky Little Things (2018, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)^[12]
• Let Me Fix That For You (2019, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)^[13]

Other work and activism

In 1996, she was hired at dot com art factory Pseudo.com (subject of the documentary We Live in Public), and rose to the position of Executive Producer before departing in 1999. Janice was the Editor-at-Large at POPsmear magazine and a contributor to BUST magazine from 1994 through 2007.

She served on the board of Girls Write Now, an organization that pairs at-risk high school girls with writing mentors, and volunteered at GEMS,^[14] which serves girls who have been commercially sexually exploited. From 2010 to 2012, she was on the board of Bowery Arts & Sciences/Bowery Poetry Club. As of June 2015,^[6] Erlbaum is teaching memoir writing, and continues to address audiences at colleges, bookstores, coffee houses, and theaters across the US.

References