Erika Janik is an award-winning historian, writer, editor, and audio producer. She’s the managing editor of the Peabody award-winning podcast Threshold. She previously ran the podcast unit at New Hampshire Public Radio, overseeing such award-winning shows as Outside/In and Civics 101, and limited series like Patient Zero and Bear Brook. She also co-founded and was the executive producer of  Wisconsin Life at Wisconsin Public Radio.

She is the author of Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction, Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine, Apple: A Global History, Madison: A History of a Model City, A Short History of Wisconsin, and Odd Wisconsin: Amusing, Perplexing and Unlikely Stories from Wisconsin’s Past. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian, The Atlantic, Salon, Slate, Midwest Living, Mental Floss, Edible Milwaukee, On Wisconsin, and The Onion, among others.

Erika has a BA in history from Linfield College, an MA in American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MA in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  When she’s not telling stories, she’s making things from clothes to baskets to stained glass.