Erica Miner - Page 8

Violinist turned author ERICA MINER has had a multi-faceted career as an award-winning screenwriter, author, lecturer and poet. A native of Detroit, she studied violin at Boston University with Boston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, where she graduated cum laude; the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center, summer home of the Boston Symphony, where she performed with such celebrated conductors as Leonard Bernstein. She continued her studies with Mr. Silverstein at the New England Conservatory of Music, and went on to perform with the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for twenty-one years, where she worked closely with much-respected maestro James Levine and numerous other luminaries of the opera world. After retiring from the Met, Erica drew upon her lifelong love for writing as her creative outlet and studied screenwriting in Los Angeles with screenplay guru Linda Seger. Erica’s screenplays awards include such recognized competitions as Santa Fe and the Writer’s Digest. Her debut novel, TRAVELS WITH MY LOVERS, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. Subsequent published novels include the first in Erica’s FOUREVER FRIENDS novel series chronicling four teenage girls coming of age in the volatile 60s. ARIA FOR MURDER, a novel of assassination and intrigue at the Metropolitan Opera, the first in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series published by Level Best Books, has won rave reviews across the board. The sequel, PRELUDE TO MURDER, received a glowing report ('A skillfully written whodunit of operatic proportions') from the prestigious Kirkus Reviews (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/erica-miner/prelude-to-murder/). Erica’s lectures, seminars and workshops have received kudos on both coasts and in Australia, and she has won top ratings as a special lecturer for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. An active contributor to BroadwayWorld.com, Backtrack.com and LAOpus.com, she also contributed a monthly “Power of Journaling” article series for the National Association of Baby Boomer Women newsletter. Other writings have appeared in Vision Magazine, WORD San Diego, Istanbul Our City, and numerous E-zines. Erica’s lecture topics include “The Art of Self- Re-invention,” “Journaling: the Write Way to Write Fiction,” “Solving the Mystery of Mystery Writing,” and “Opera Meets Hollywood.” Details about Erica’s novels, screenplays and lectures can be found on her website, https://www.ericaminer.com.