Janice Erlbaum
Encyclopedia
Janice Erlbaum is an American slam poet from New York City who is the author of GirlBomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir and Have You Found Her: A Memoir. Her poetry and prose have been featured in anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order, The Best American Erotic Poems From 1800 to the Present, and Verses that Hurt.
She lives in her native New York City with her domestic partner, Bill Scurry.
GirlBomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, after running away from home at age 15 Erlbaum spent years going from youth shelter to shelter, a self-described "halfway homeless" high school student afflicted with a taste for hard drugs and risky choices, while attending Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities
.
, where she was a frequent contributor of personal essays and short features from 1991 through 1995, Janice Erlbaum was a prominent fixture on the early ‘90s New York slam poetry scene, performing as a member of the feminist collective Pussy Poets, and earning a spot on MTV
’s “Sex in the ‘90s: Love Sucks” special, as well as the cover of the Nuyorican anthology. She was a featured poet on the Lollapalooza
’94 tour, and performed and hosted at Woodstock 94. Pussy Poets and Erlbaum’s solo act were seen at venues including Dixon Place
, the Kitchen, St. Mark's Poetry Project
, and Fez.
.
(subject of the documentary We Live in Public
), and rose to the position of Executive Producer before departing in 1999. Janice was the Editor-at-Large at POPsmear magazine and a contributor to BUST magazine from 1994 through 2007.
She served on the board of Girls Write Now, an organization that pairs at-risk high school girls with writing mentors, and volunteers at GEMS, which helps young women who have been victims of sexual exploitation. As of July 2011, Erlbaum is teaching memoir writing, and has addressed audiences at colleges, bookstores, coffee houses, and theaters across the US.
She lives in her native New York City with her domestic partner, Bill Scurry.
Early Life
As chronicled in her memoirMemoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
GirlBomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, after running away from home at age 15 Erlbaum spent years going from youth shelter to shelter, a self-described "halfway homeless" high school student afflicted with a taste for hard drugs and risky choices, while attending Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities
Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities
The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex at 351 West 18th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a "vertical campus" of the New York City Department of Education which contains a number of small public schools, most of them high schools...
.
Poetry
Published for the first time at the age of 20 in New York PressNew York Press
New York Press was a free alternative weekly in New York City, that was published from 1988 to 2011. During its lifetime, it was the main competitor to the Village Voice...
, where she was a frequent contributor of personal essays and short features from 1991 through 1995, Janice Erlbaum was a prominent fixture on the early ‘90s New York slam poetry scene, performing as a member of the feminist collective Pussy Poets, and earning a spot on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
’s “Sex in the ‘90s: Love Sucks” special, as well as the cover of the Nuyorican anthology. She was a featured poet on the Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
’94 tour, and performed and hosted at Woodstock 94. Pussy Poets and Erlbaum’s solo act were seen at venues including Dixon Place
Dixon Place
Dixon Place is an Obie Award winning, Off-Off Broadway New York City theater devoted exclusively to presenting original pieces of theater, dance, performance art and literature that are works in progress.-History:...
, the Kitchen, St. Mark's Poetry Project
St. Mark's Poetry Project
The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church was founded in 1966 in the East Village of Manhattan by the poet and translator Paul Blackburn, it has been a crucial venue for new and experimental poetries for over four decades....
, and Fez.
Novels
In 2006, Villard/Random House published her first book, Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir. An explicit look back at her teenage years spent in shelters and group homes, Girlbomb was praised in venues including the New York Times and Elle magazine, and awarded several honors, including a spot on the New York Public Library’s “25 to Remember” list for 2006. It was simultaneously published in the UK as The Runaway by Ebury Press, and under its original name by Random House Australia. Her second memoir, Have You Found Her, was published by Villard/Random House in 2008; it details her return to the shelter as an adult volunteer, and the deep relationship she forged with a brilliant, damaged girl she called “Samantha.” She has also contributed, in recent years, to McSweeneys.org, Nerve.com, and NextbookNextbook
Nextbook is a nonprofit, Jewish organization founded in 2003 to promote Jewish literature, culture, and ideas. The organization sponsors public lectures, commissions books on Jewish topics, and publishes an online magazine, Tablet Magazine....
.
Other Work and Activism
In 1996, she was hired at noted dot com art factory Pseudo.comPseudo.com
Pseudo.com was a website for live audio and video webcasting. Founded in late 1993, its parent company Pseudo Programs Inc. filed for bankruptcy following the end of the Dot Com Bubble in 2000. Its assets were purchased by INTV in 2001...
(subject of the documentary We Live in Public
We Live in Public
We Live in Public is a 2009 documentary by Ondi Timoner which profiles Internet pioneer Josh Harris. It has as its theme the loss of privacy in the internet age.- Synopsis :...
), and rose to the position of Executive Producer before departing in 1999. Janice was the Editor-at-Large at POPsmear magazine and a contributor to BUST magazine from 1994 through 2007.
She served on the board of Girls Write Now, an organization that pairs at-risk high school girls with writing mentors, and volunteers at GEMS, which helps young women who have been victims of sexual exploitation. As of July 2011, Erlbaum is teaching memoir writing, and has addressed audiences at colleges, bookstores, coffee houses, and theaters across the US.