Erika Atkinson has been a long term traveler and she gathered decades of travel impressions. Her first book, Happily Lost In Time and Place, was published in 2012. And after that, four other books followed in breathtaking speed. Two of them about traveling. One with poetry. And the last one about San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, the neighborhood that she loves so much and where she has been living for so many years.
Bert thinks, she can paint with words. And to him she is the Grand Old Lady of the travel story. More information about her books can be find below.
HAPPILY LOST IN TIME AND PLACE brings together over two dozen stories and poems, inspired by her over fifty years of travel from a one-room country school house in Manitoba to all parts of the globe.”Since she was eighteen, and for all the years she has remained so, Erika has wondered and wandered about the earth, never searching (that, alas, would require a prior purpose), but always finding. Most of all she has found—or has become—the Rosetta Stone of the human condition; the strength, the humor, the guile, and the quirks that connect us all, from joyful Parisian bar hustlers to cold war, warm-hearted Soviet peddlers. Even a love-lorn, Antarctic penguin is only human. They all have a story—we all have a story—and Erika reminds us that a good story must be told, and told well.”—Michael Welch
FROZEN STILLNESS is Erika’s very personal record of a once-in-a-lifetime experience — a journey of endless illumination provided by the privilege of walking amidst the unique splendors of antarctic Nature, including the improbable and profound encounter with absolute silence.
MORE MILES AND MOMENTS follows Erika’s first book, HAPPILY LOST IN TIME AND PLACE, bringing together a second group of stories and poems inspired by her many years of travel to all parts of the world. The episodes contained in this collection are another record of personal adventures, well-seasoned with colorful characters and coincidences. As usual, it is impossible to deny the existence of chance occurrences in her experiences, the serendipity which, as one avid reader affirmed “…is the rendezvous between ourselves and life, sometimes having taken place long before we are aware of it.”
EXHORT THE GODDESSES This first published collection of Erika Atkinson’s poetry demonstrates her ability to turn words into a very personal and creative language. Each page reveals a true moment in time, from intimate tenderness to experiential observation, from reflective family history to heartfelt loss of friends.
ODE TO THE CASTRO is Erika’s poem of gratitude to San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood where, she tells us, her heart was beating long before she lived there. “I belong here. I resonate here. I reverberate here,” she states emphatically. The pages of this book will illustrate the colors and diversity of what she calls the tapestry of her life in this neighborhood. “It is my hope the words will put smiles on your faces and evince chuckles from your hearts.”
And in this interview you can see an hear what Erika has to say in her own words about the Castro District.