Erin Aubry Kaplan

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a Los Angeles journalist and columnist born in 1962[1] who has written about African-American political, economic and cultural issues since 1992.[2][3] She is a contributing writer to the op-ed section of the Los Angeles Times,[4][5] and from 2005 to 2007 was a weekly op-ed columnist – the first black weekly op-ed columnist in the paper’s recent history.[6] She has been a staff writer and columnist for the LA Weekly[7] and a regular contributor for many publications, including Salon.com,[8] Essence,[9][10][11] and Ms.[12][13][14][15]

Kaplan is also a regular columnist for make/shift, a quarterly feminist magazine that launched in 2007[16] and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.[17]

Kaplan’s essays have been anthologized is several books, including (as Erin Aubry) "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood" (Villard, Washington Square Press),[18] "Step Into A World" (Wiley & Sons)[19] and "Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood" (Doubleday).[20] The last book’s contributors include Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks and Alice Walker, and won an American Book Award in 2005.[21] She won the PEN USA 2001 award for journalism.[22]

Kaplan has published two books. Her first book was a collection of essays and reportage titled Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line: Dispaches From a Black Journalista, and was published in 2011.[23][24] Her second, I Heart Obama, an extended essay about the cultural and personal meaning of the first black American president, was published in 2016.[25]

Kaplan was born and raised in Los Angeles, though her family is originally from New Orleans. She was married to Alan Kaplan, a Los Angeles high school history teacher, for 15 years. He died in 2015.[26] Kaplan holds an MFA from University of California, Los Angeles, and teaches creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles.[3]