About

Welcome to my page! For taking the effort to navigate to this page, here is some vital info about me as your reward.

I, Erik C. Martin, am a native of Cleveland, Ohio. I am old enough to remember the blizzard of 1978 and when the Browns were good. But I am not so old to remember the infamous Cuyahoga River fire. I was the son of a hard-working iron worker Vietnam Vet who liked to ride Harleys, and who also introduced me to books that are still my favorites. In second grade, I borrowed The Hobbit from him; I never looked back.

I developed a love of Fantasy and Science Fiction early on. I spent hours at the library discovering Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander (who once sent a thoughtful letter back to me in response to one I wrote him in 3rd grade). Later I found Robert Heinlein, Michael Moorcock, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, and so many more. Around age 9, I caught the Dungeons and Dragons bug and discovered an awesome way to create worlds and tell interactive stories with my friends.

Years passed. I wrote many things that no one shall ever read. As a teen I managed to churn out some short stories and the obligatory maudlin poetry. I discovered the Grateful Dead when I was about 14 and getting to lots of Dead Shows became a distraction for about the next 10 years until Jerry’s tragic death.

In my twenties I finished my first novel. Two people have read it. I wrote it on a typewriter and it sits to this day in storage, probably being eaten my mice. At least someone would be enjoying it that way.

Sometime, I moved out of Cleveland and ended up in Greensboro, North Carolina, of all places. There, I began to write more seriously. That has continued now that I am in California. In the last seven or eight years, I have finished 4 novels and several short stories. A few have managed to find their way into print. A few I published myself under my imprint, In A Bind Books (which was also the name of the bookstore that I opened in 2000 and closed in 2001). Lately, I have felt very productive and have several stories finished that I have been trying to place and more in various stages of completion.

I got older and found other writers I love, Douglas Adams, Louis L’Amour, and Terry Pratchett come immediately to mind. I have rediscovered comic books lately, not so much the X-Men and Spider-Man of my youth; now The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the Lumberjanes are my must read titles. I still like Doctor Who almost as much now as when I was a kid.