About

Hi! My name is Erica “ERN” Rivera (she/they) and I'm a performance writer, editor, and collage artist.

I'm the author of The Girls from Pasadena, my debut collection of short stories, available now for pre-order on Itch! The collection brings together 15 twisted, transfeminist modern fables that peel back the skin on a technocolonialist hellscape that's just around the corner. You can read early versions of some of my short stories, including two that will appear in the collection (“Platformer” and “Assignments”), on this site.

I'm also the author of The Ecology of Art, Strike! (tRaum Books, Fall 2025), my forthcoming debut collection of essays. The book doubles as an “anti-publishing manifesto,” and a speculative memoir loosely tracing the first year of my medical transition, as well as my experiences serving as co-editor for Art, Strike!, an online art/literary publication.

I'm also the author of the year that i was born into (Querencia Press, TBD), my forthcoming debut chapbook of prose poems. The chapbook chronicles the mundane aspects of transitioning as they relate to the world at large. Each of the twelve prose poems in the collection roughly correspond to a single month in the first year of my medical transition.

I'm currently at work on my first novel, Artist; an epistolary memoir tentatively titled The Trans Girl's Guide to Modern Television (you can read the first chapter, “The Trans Girl's Guide to Grey's Anatomy,” here); and a short hybrid book of poetry and prose, the((hi)st)ories. You can more about my published and unpublished works on my Publications page, and about the workshops I'm facilitating this year on my Teaching page.

If you'd like to learn more about me and my approach to art and writing, you can read my essay titled “Parables,” available on this site.

Please note that the essay above references my history of being violent and abusive. Being publicly open about this is part of my ongoing accountability work and one way in which I remain accountable to those who I am in community with.

I am unsure whether this is the right thing to do or say here, but if it turns out not to be, I will change this note accordingly: if you have any questions about my ongoing accountability work, especially if you have a history of being violent and abusive and are unsure how to begin your own accountability work, please feel free to contact me at [Work AT RiveraErica DOT com]. I am not a professional, but I am willing to share what I have learned, or at least point you towards other kinds of resources.

One resource is “learning good consent,” which is available as a free PDF online, but which is also available for purchase from multiple presses and distros. If you want help finding it, or would like to me to assist you with purchasing it, please let me know and I will help as best I can.

“learning good consent” is only one resource of many, and although not all abuse or violence is inherently sexual in nature, much of it is, and the text offers important information to anyone who has harmed others in any way.

Also, please feel free to reach out to me for any reason at [Work AT RiveraErica DOT com].

Finally, please note that my public-facing online presence is comprised of:

I have somewhat anonymous accounts on a few other social media sites (you can pretty much tell it's me if you look at who I follow and what I post/boost) but I do not use them to send or respond to direct messages. If you're messaged by someone claiming to be me through a social channel not listed above (including Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Telegram, Signal, and Substack), please note that it is most definitely not me.