Erin McKean

Lexicographer and founder of Wordnik.com Twitter

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Erin McKean is the founder of Wordnik.com. Previously, she was the editor in chief for American Dictionaries at Oxford University Press, and the editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2E.

Her books include Weird and Wonderful Words, More Weird and Wonderful Words, Totally Weird and Wonderful Words, and That’s Amore (which is also a collection of words). Her first novel, The Secret Lives of Dresses, was published by GrandCentral/5Spot in February 2011. Her newest book is The Hundred Dresses, a nonfiction field guide to dress archetypes, published by Bloomsbury in summer 2013.

Erin lives in California south of San Francisco and spends her free time reading, sewing, coding, blogging, roller-skating, and arguing about whether robots or zombies would win in a fight (lasers optional). She loves loud prints, quiet people, long books with happy endings, and McVitie’s Milk Chocolate Hobnobs.