Ervin holds a BA in Philosophy and Religion (
Goucher College), an MS in English (Illinois State University) and MFA in Fiction (
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). He served as the inaugural Southern Review Resident Scholar at
Louisiana State University. He was previously the Kratz Writer-in-Residence at Goucher College and a 2016-2017 Digital Studies Fellow at
Rutgers University-Camden. He teaches part-time for the Honors Program and the MFA program in creative writing at
Temple University as well as for the Interactive Games and Media department at
Rochester Institute of Technology. As a fiction writer, his short stories have appeared in the literary journals
Conjunctions,
Fiction International,
The Southern Review,
Another Chicago Magazine,
Monkeybicycle and Golden Handcuffs Review. His fiction has been included in the anthologies Chicago Noir (2005), Mythtym (2008), Topograph (2010), and Gigantic Worlds (2014). His story
The Light of Two Million Stars in
Conjunctions issue 53 was listed among the “distinguished submissions” in Best American Short Stories 2010, edited by Richard Russo. Selections of his fiction appear online at Hobart, Significant Objects, Revolver and Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. His first book was a collection of novellas,
Extraordinary Renditions, published in 2010. Publishers Weekly included the book on its list of the “Best Books of 2010.” It was also a long-list finalist for The Story Prize Ervin's debut novel ''Burning Down George Orwell's House'' was published in 2015 by Soho Press. Parisian publishing house Éd Joelle Losfeld/Gallimard released the novel's French translation. in 2016. As a critic, Ervin has published hundreds of book reviews and essays in USA Today, New York Times Book Review, The Believer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, American Book Review and elsewhere. Selections of his critical essays can be found online at Salon, The Rumpus, Conversational Reading and Publishing Perspectives. His first book-length work of criticism
Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World, a combination of history, criticism, and personal experiences relating to video games, was published by Basic Books in May 2017. As an editor, Ervin interned at the publishing houses Dalkey Archive Press and FC2. He guest edited two issues of American Book Review and one of nonfiction for an issue of Hobart. He has worked at the literary magazines Monkeybicycle, Ninth Letter and The Southern Review. ==Published works==