Erin is currently seeking an agent to publish her first novel: Waves Apart.

When the earth finally shifts, the truths they’ve buried will rise with it.

Susie Ahane has spent her life preparing for disaster. Born in Japan and shaped by childhood loss, she’s built a fortress of vigilance around her family in Portland, Oregon—stocking their basement bunker, memorizing emergency plans, scanning every horizon for signs of danger. Her husband Hank, a gentle math professor raised by a single mother, tries to meet her fears with steadiness, even optimism. Together they raise their spirited twins, Iris and Mae, and their young son, Dean, weaving a home full of love, stories, and unspoken scars.

But nature is only one kind of fault line. When a tragic near‑drowning fractures the family’s closest friendship, when the weight of old ghosts presses in on Susie, and when the looming threat of the Cascadia earthquake becomes more than metaphor, the Ahane‑Holdens must reckon with the truth: surviving isn’t the same as living.

Spanning continents and decades—from Sendai to Boston to the Pacific Northwest—WAVES APART is an intimate, lyrical novel about the legacies we inherit, the memories we outrun, and the deep resilience of the human heart. It is a story of mothers and daughters, of love that steadies and love that consumes, and the ways families rebuild long after the shaking stops.

Erin Stammer grew up in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Brown University with a BA in Comparative Literature and French. She later obtained her Masters in Healthcare Administration from Portland State University. She is married and has four grown children. When she is not reading and writing she works full time for a finance company, cooks, practices yoga, and enjoys traveling the world.