Occupation Author Name James Erwin | Role Author Books Acadia | |
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Genre history, science fiction | ||
James Erwin is an American author. He has written several works of history and science fiction. He came to public notice by creating Rome Sweet Rome, a short story on Reddit which went viral and became the basis of a Warner Brothers screenplay.
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Personal life
Erwin was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended the University of Iowa. He currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa. In 2009, Erwin was a two-time Jeopardy! champion.
As an author
Erwin's first book was published in 2007. He worked as a technical writer.
He came to public notice when he created the story Rome Sweet Rome; written in response to a question on Reddit, the story quickly went viral. Featured in national media, the story came to the attention of producer Gianni Nunnari, as well as the motion picture studio Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers bought a screenplay based on the short story, and Erwin became the subject of profiles and interviews in Wired Magazine, Time, FT, and other media.
Rome Sweet Rome remains popular; it was later revealed that screenwriter Brian Miller had been hired by Warner Brothers to write a second draft of the screenplay.
Erwin parlayed his success into a Kickstarter campaign for his first novel Acadia.
He has also written for outlets like Wired, Mental Floss, Boing Boing, and Slate.com.