Name Erika Waters | Role Writer | |
Erika J. Waters is an American editor, academic and critic. She was the founding editor of the literary journal The Caribbean Writer in 1986 and has published critical works on Caribbean literature and on women's literature, notably on writers including Caryl Phillips, Una Marson and Jean Rhys.
Life and career
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, when her mother was working at the Pentagon. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from New York University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of New Mexico. She began teaching at the University of the Virgin Islands (St. Croix) in the early 1970s and is professor emeritus of English there, having been studying and writing on Caribbean literature for over 30 years. Her essays, interviews, and reviews have been published in various academic journals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, World Literature Today and The Women's Review of Books. Her research on women writers has been funded by the Tulsa Center for the Study of Women's Literature and the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 2002 to 2012, she taught part-time at the University of Southern Maine, and in 2005 was a Fulbright Scholar in Finland. She wrote earlier under the name Erika Smilowitz.