By day, Erica Lorraine Scheidt is a marketing consultant and for some years had her own PR agency specializing in video games. She now works part-time for a non-profit organization, while also serving on the board of directors of ISIS, a 10-year-old non-profit focused on sexual literacy. As a teenager, Erica studied writing with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jim Carroll at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. In 2007, she was nominated by Rick Moody for the Best New American Voices anthology and in 2008 received an MA in creative writing at University of California, Davis. Erica is a longtime volunteer at 826 Valencia, working with teenage writers who are crafting their own stories, and is passionate about writing by teens and for teens. She is the author of Uses for Boys. She lives in San Francisco.