Eric Gabriel Lehman grew up in the Bronx, New York, and received a BA from the University at Buffalo, an MA from the City College, and an MFA from Stony Brook University. He is the author of three well-received novels, Waterboys (Mercury House), Quaspeck (Mercury House), and Summer’s House (St. Martin’s). Work on Waterboys was supported with a Goodman Fund grant and Quaspeck received a City of Berlin literature stipend. The writing of Summer’s House was supported by a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. He has been awarded residences at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Blue Mountain Center, among others.
His first two novels were written during his ten years in Berlin, where he worked as a pianist for ballet companies in Hamburg and Berlin and Berlin’s University of the Arts. He was active as a lyricist and composer, performing throughout Germany and German-speaking Switzerland, as well as making radio and television appearances. Morgens in Mauretanien is a bilingual collection of his song lyrics. Recordings of his work can be found in Berlin’s LGBTQ permanent archive.
His short fiction has been published in Raritan, Michigan Quarterly Review, Jewish Fiction, Confrontation, and others, as well as in the UK, Ireland, and Germany. His short fiction has received a National Arts Club award and has been a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Prize. His stories have been anthologized in Best American Gay Fiction and Neue Amerikanische Kurzgeschichten. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Jewish Journal, and elsewhere. They have been anthologized in Without Force or Lies: Writers Respond to the Cultural Revolution in Central Europe, 1989-1990.
He has taught at Long Island University and several CUNY schools, including Hunter College and Queens College, where he earned a President’s Award for excellence in teaching. He and his husband divide their time between New York and Ontario.
Eric Gabriel Lehman 