Erica N. Cardwell is a writer, culture critic, and radical educator based in New York.  She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a 2015 LAMBDA Fellow in Nonfiction. Born on a full moon in Dayton, Ohio, Erica was raised in Amish Country, Pennsylvania. She has been a proud New Yorker for 18 years.

Erica teaches English and Literature at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY) and a Social Justice capstone in the Gural Scholars Program for The New School. She has taught composition, literature, and creative writing at various schools and universities, such as: Barnard College, Marymount Manhattan College, Hunter College, and UC Berkeley. Prior to this, she worked in youth development and arts administration at the Hetrick-Martin Institute for six years.

Her writing has appeared in The Believer, Hyperallergic, Rewire, The Feminist Wire, Bitch Media, The London Progressive Journal, Contact Sheet 187: Light Work Annual, Green Mountains Review, Triangle House Review. In 2017,Erica received a scholarship from Vermont Studio Center as a writer in residence. Her essay, “Kara Walker and the Black Imagination” was featured on the Rumpus Round-Up in December of 2017. Erica is on the editorial board of Radical Teacher and co-edited the Issue 101, “Teaching Black Lives Matter.” 

Erica writes about Black women and black artists.

She lives in Brooklyn with her wife, Zhaleh Afshar and their turtle, Smiley Mousa.