Anthologies

Short Stories

Topics

Craft, Subject Expertise

Public Speaking Details

Erica is an experienced speaker on a wide range of topics, both writing and musical. She has lectured on both coasts, was a top-rated speaker on several cruise lines, and has even presented for a renowned musical organization in Sydney, Australia. As a former professional musician, Erica is a performer in every sense, capturing her audiences with her expertise, enthusiasm, and passion.

Biography

Former Metropolitan Opera violinist Erica Miner now enjoys a multi-faceted career as an award-wining author, lecturer, screenwriter, and arts journalist. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Erica continues to balance her reviews and interviews of real-world musical artists for major arts websites such as Broadway World and US Bachtrack with her fanciful plot fabrications that reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera. Aria for Murder, the first in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series, set at the Metropolitan Opera and published by Level Best Books in Oct. 2022, was a finalist in the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Prelude to Murder, released in Sept. 2023, takes place at Santa Fe Opera. The third in the series, set at San Francisco Opera, releases in 2024. Erica’s debut novel, Travels with my Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. Her screenplays have earned awards in the Santa Fe, WinFemme and Writer’s Digest competitions, and have placed in numerous other contests. Erica also has written screenplays of several of her novels. Erica is a top speaker and lecturer on writing and opera. As a writer, she has presented on Journaling, Mystery Writing, and Setting at the Write on the Sound, Fields End, and Greater Los Angeles Writers Conferences, and for the Puget Sound Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She was a panelist on “Write What You Know” at the 2023 Bouchercon “Murder at the Marina” Writers Conference in San Diego and presented on “Bringing Murder and Music Together” at the Bouchercon Spotlight Evening. As a music lecturer, in addition to her pre-concert lectures for the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall, Erica presents on opera for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of California San Diego and University of Washington; Creative Retirement Institute at Edmonds College, Washington; and Wagner Societies in Boston, New York, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, North Carolina and New South Wales, Australia.