Erica Wagner
Founding member
Bio
Lead Editorial Innovator, Vocal. Author, critic, friend, parent, cook. New book: Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge. Twitter: @EricaWgnr, Insta: @ericawgnr
Stories (21/0)
I love comments and community
I was 19 years old and I was crying. I had a window seat on a train travelling through the French countryside; a love affair had ended and it hadn’t been my choice. The gorgeous terrain blurring beyond the window seemed to accentuate my heartbreak; I leaned my head against the glass and let the tears flow.
By Erica Wagner3 months ago in Motivation
Salman Rushdie, New Yorker
Horrifying news is all the more shocking if you yourself were only just talking and laughing with the victim of a terrible attack. Just a few days before Sir Salman Rushdie was gravely injured onstage in Chautauqua, in western New York, I was chatting with him in the lounge of a private members’ club in lower Manhattan, the city that, for the past 23 years, has been the writer’s adopted home. We were a gathering of three — Salman and I and Jeremy Frommer, Executive Chairman of Creatd, Vocal’s parent company and one of my oldest friends. Turns out that Rushdie and Frommer were members of the same club — when I’d discovered that the two of them hung out there, I felt I had to bring these unique people together.
By Erica Wagner4 months ago in Journal
Write Here, Write Now: A Vocal Podcast
When I asked Vocal creator RJ Wade whether she found a commitment to writing early on in her life, or whether the development of her gift was a slower burn, her response was immediate and powerful. “It was right away, and it was full-blown and passionate,” she said of her love affair with the written word.
By Erica Wagner5 months ago in Resources
His name is Yip — and it's one you won't forget
Paddy Crewe’s debut novel is set in northern Georgia and the mountains of Tennessee in the early years of the 19th century. My Name Is Yip is an adventure story, a tale of struggle against great odds, a paean to the power of friendship. Its narrator is unable to speak — and so he learns to communicate with slate and chalk. “My name is Yip Tolroy & I am a mute,” his account begins. “I have made not a sound since the day of my birth, October 2nd, 1815. I will say that my life has been something of a trial but such is God’s wish & so I must tell my story here on the page.”
By Erica Wagner6 months ago in Interview
Top Gun: The Lost Pilot
Who doesn’t want to be Maverick? In Tony Scott’s Top Gun Pete Mitchell was the epitome of the glorious warrior, as skilled as he was wild. Who doesn’t want to question authority, live beyond the rules, fly too close to the Sun? That’s the catch of course: Maverick is also Icarus, Maverick is Achilles, the hero felled by his own flaw — though it’s his best friend, Goose, who falls from the sky. Cruise, it’s worth noting, has wondered whether a contemporary studio would tolerate Goose’s death, if the movie were made today. “Can you imagine? Today, you’d have a hard time killing Goose,” he has said. “There would be a lot of discussion about killing Goose. You’d go to test screenings, and they would tell us, ‘They hate it when Goose dies! He’s such a likeable character! You’ve got to cut that out of the movie.’”
By Erica Wagner7 months ago in Geeks
110 Years of Titanic Tales
“Then suddenly he felt a curious motion break the steady rhythm of the engines. It was a little like coming alongside a dock wall rather heavily. He glanced forward—and stared again. A windjammer, sails set, seemed to be passing along the starboard side. Then he realized it was an iceberg, towering perhaps 100 feet above the water. The next instant it was gone, drifting astern into the dark.”
By Erica Wagner8 months ago in FYI
Joining Creatd, Inc. and crossing a bridge...
The first time I visited the offices of Creatd, Inc. — two years before I joined the company as Lead Editorial Innovator — I walked across the George Washington Bridge to get there. I was staying in Manhattan, where I grew up; I took the A train to 177th Street and headed west, towards the Hudson River, towards the narrow path that switchbacks up towards the great steel span of the bridge.
By Erica Wagnerabout a year ago in Journal
Learning to fly
Heading towards Tower Bridge today in the rain, the light changed to amber just as I was reaching the approach to the span. I pulled my bike out in front of the traffic, waiting while a bus, a truck, passed in front of me on the Highway. I used to work near here – years ago now – so this neighbourhood always has a resonance for me, an echo of another life; but this morning I was thinking not about those vanished years but about the time, only four months ago, when waiting for the light here, being anywhere near here, made my heart pound with fear, with the certainty that I was bound to be knocked off my bike and flattened by a ton or two of moving metal. Four months ago I wasn’t a cyclist. Today, I am.
By Erica Wagner2 years ago in Longevity
The spicy delights of a Bloody Mary
Hemingway thought it was “worthless” to make less than a pitcher of Bloody Marys. While I agree in spirit – pun intended – in practice I make do with a glass. Why did lockdown call up a craving for a Bloody Mary? Maybe because I could tell myself it was almost more of a snack than a drink (and healthy at that! Tomatoes! Celery!) but maybe because a Bloody Mary makes me think of my Mom, who loved them and taught me to drink them. I lost her over a decade ago, my dad a couple of years before that; but they are present to me whenever I’m in the kitchen, and as I mix my Bloody Mary I can hear my mother’s ice clink in her glass.
By Erica Wagner3 years ago in Proof
The world is your oyster
It's an hour before noon in Cancale, on the coast of Brittany; head down to the edge of the sea — the port is called La Houle — in the chilly sunshine and wait, perched on a stone wall. Soon, you see them come into view, the little oyster boats, chugging into shore with their morning's catch.
By Erica Wagner3 years ago in Wander
A hawk in my heart
I was cruising toward Blackfriars Bridge, south to the beckoning Thames. I rise early for my permitted “one form of exercise a day” — cycling seems the best way to keep 2 metres apart and so I discover I am becoming a more confident cyclist. Disquieting, however, to feel proud of my improving skills, knowing they are thanks to the streets eerily emptied by COVID-19. Ordinarily the City would be thick with cars and trucks and buses, but not this morning, not any morning now.
By Erica Wagner3 years ago in Petlife
