Erica Wagner

London

Freelance Literary Editor at Harper's Bazaar

Lead Editorial Innovator, Creatd, Inc./Vocal Media. Contributing Writer, New Statesman; Consulting Literary Editor, Harper's Bazaar. Astronaut.

Articles

Erica Wagner: Art and culture build bridges that no president can destroy

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Erica Wagner

These days, standing ovations in London’s West End seem obligatory. I resist, because surely this theatrical accolade should be reserved for the greatest performances. But I rose to my feet for John Lithgow on the opening night of Giant, Mark Rosenblatt’s play about Roald Dahl and antisemitism, which has transferred from the Royal Court. It is too simplistic to say that the play paints Dahl as a monster.
In Twist, Colum McCann examines what connects us

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Erica Wagner

An undersea fibre optic cable between Latvia and Sweden, damaged at the end of January – Sweden suspects Russian foul play. Earlier that month, a fleet of Nato vessels assembles off the coast of Estonia to guard undersea cables from sabotage. In the UK, MPs and Lords are due to investigate the vulnerabilities of undersea cables, thanks to an inquiry initiated by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr review – a tale of hope in rural Ireland

Feb 7, 2025 | msn.com | Erica Wagner

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr review - a tale of hope in rural Ireland

Feb 7, 2025 | theguardian.com | Erica Wagner

Garrett Carr’s debut novel for adults begins in an accomplished storyteller’s hypnotic style. “We were a hardy people, raised facing the Atlantic. A few thousand men, women and children clinging to the coast and trying to stay dry. Our town wasn’t just a town, it was logic and a fate.” The first person plural pulls the reader in, makes us feel a part of the tale.
The Brothers Grimm: A Biography — the truth behind the fairy tales

Dec 31, 2024 | ft.com | Erica Wagner

The learned scholar despaired of his students.
Oliver Sacks's letters from a beautiful mind

Nov 26, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Erica Wagner

In June 1974, Oliver Sacks wrote to Bob Rodman, a psychiatrist who had been a close friend since they were both medical residents at UCLA. Rodman’s wife, Maria – only 38 years old – had been diagnosed with a mysterious illness that would eventually prove fatal; Rodman wrote to Sacks of his shock, his despair; suicide, he wrote was a “luxury” since the couple had two young daughters.
Stay With Me by Hanne Ørstavik review – looking for love

Nov 19, 2024 | msn.com | Erica Wagner

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Stay With Me by Hanne Ørstavik review - looking for love

Nov 19, 2024 | theguardian.com | Erica Wagner

Stay With Me is a brief novel, but the whole is overshadowed by fear. The narrator, a Norwegian novelist living in Milan, recalls her childhood in the book’s opening pages, the constant threat of her father’s violence, its eruptions the more fearsome for being random, unpredictable. “The world was hard. Wrong was wrong. When it could have been right. Afraid was a state of being. I don’t know when it started.
Apocalypse now in New York

Nov 13, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Erica Wagner

This is as good a time as any to think about the nature of power – who has it and why, and what it takes to discover the machinations of acquiring it. At the New-York Historical Society on the afternoon of 6 November, I leaned in close to a glass display case. Four years ago, the city’s oldest museum acquired the papers of Robert Caro, perhaps the world’s greatest living biographer: at 89 he is hard at work on the fifth and final volume of his life of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Where to start with: Alan Garner

Oct 16, 2024 | msn.com | Erica Wagner

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.