Erin K. Barnes is a Denver-based writer of memoir, speculative fiction, music journalism, and travel. A synesthete, PR wing woman, mother, and Colorado native, she penned a travel book of quick escapes from the city called Easy Weekend Getaways from Denver and Boulder, out now with Countryman Press/W.W. Norton. Erin revisited her rebellious youth with a low art exploration of the Fort Collins punk scene of the ‘90s, Glory Guitars: Memoir of a `90s Teenage Punk Rock Grrrl. The scene’s wastoid punks and sexual nihilism provide no shortage of cheap thrills, as well as a sharp lens to explore gender stereotypes that bind us all. Glory Guitars straddles this dichotomy like it's a live rocket: joyful, explosive, visceral, manic and gut-punchingly heartbreaking.  
  
Erin is still known to some in Denver as Headmistress of the Donnybrook Writing Academy, an award-winning tongue-in-cheek society blog formed in the aughts. Her PR efforts before Meow Wolf brought international acclaim to the Black Monarch Hotel, a haunted bordello in a ghost town renovated into a Victorian gothic boutique hotel. There, she co-led the Haunted Writer’s Retreat, a five-day immersive horror writing workshop that she co-founded with Josiah Hesse, writer of Runner’s High/the Canality series/Vice. Her recent bylines include Men's Heath, BUST, Syfy, and OK Whatever. Erin was honored as one of Westword’_s 100 Colorado Creatives and _303 Magazine’s 70 Colorado Creatives. She lives in Denver with her two kids and two kittens.