About

Erika Janik is an award-winning writer, editor, and audio producer with a passion for history, quirky characters, and complexity. She’s worked on a wide variety of projects, from the Peabody award-winning podcast Threshold to the chart-topping limited series Bear Brook from NHPR. She co-founded the show Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio, bringing the voices and experiences of people from all over Wisconsin to the airwaves. She’s currently the executive producer and managing editor of the Minnesota arts and culture show MinneCulture.

She doesn’t just make audio. She’s also the author of six history books: 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 making stories, she’s making crafts and walking dogs.