About Erin Emily Ann Vance

Growing up, Erin Emily Ann Vance (she/her) wanted to be a paranormal investigator or criminal profiler, but instead she became a writer who works in a haunted art gallery.

She is currently Culture & Heritage Education Programmer for the Town of Okotoks, and an occasional instructor for the Alexandra Writers Centre Society, of which she is also a member of the board. When the urge strikes, Erin blogs about strange history and all things curious @folkcurioarchive.

As an amateur genealogist, Erin spends most of her free time cuddling with her dog, Circe, and attempting to uncover dark family secrets.

Erin is the author of the novel Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers (Stonehouse Publishing 2019), and the poetry collection A History of Touch (Guernica Editions 2022), as well as six chapbooks of poetry.

Her writing has been described as "spellbinding, incantatory, and downright creepy," (The Blasted Tree Publishing Collective), "a door to a realm beyond our own, where reality unspools and freedom is found," (Cathering Garbinsky) and "beautiful and disturbing in equal measure." (Mike Thorn)

In 2017, Erin was a recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize (nominated by Aritha van Herk) and a finalist for the 2018 Alberta Magazine Awards for her short story “All the Pretty Bones.” Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in magazines and journals all over the world.

Erin holds a Masters Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Calgary and a Masters Degree in Irish Folklore and Ethnology from University College Dublin.

She attended the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry summer course at Queen's University Belfast in 2018 and 2020, and was a fellow of Summer Literary Seminars in Nairobi in December 2018. Erin attended the Writers Guild of Alberta Banff Centre Residency in February 2019 and worked with author and editor Kimmy Beach as part of the 2019 WGA Mentorship Program.

More coming soon.

Vance started Femmes Macabres with close friend Stephanie Meloche in early 2020, as a passion project. Femmes Macabres is a folklore, history, and pop-culture podcast covering oddities, mysteries, and the macabre. Steph and Erin met while working on Erin's chapbook The Sorceress Who Left Too Soon (Steph is the co-founder of Coven Editions) and solidified their friendship travelling around Ireland searching for ghosts and poison gardens. They've covered everything from the exploitation of the Dionne Quintuplets to Mary Toft (the woman who gave birth to rabbits) to the Radium Dial Painters' fight for justice in the US. Find Femmes Macabres on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

Note: While the podcast is currently on an indefinite hiatus, previous episodes remain available.