Erik Harper
Erik Benjamin Harper was born Benjamin Harper in York, England, in 1979, to an English father and a Swiss mother. In his teens, his mother relocated them to Switzerland, where he attended an all-boys boarding school. After graduating from school, he lived a year on a farm before apprenticing to become a chef. He worked as a chef for some years and found that although he loved cooking, it was not his calling. He married at 30 and was happy for a while until he suffered a burnout. This led to him being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He began to write short stories as a way to deal with everything that was happening to him, but never assumed he would write professionally due to his dyslexia. His mental health struggle would end his marriage after 11 years. Over the next years, his mental health began to stabilise, and life was good. During this time, he had his name changed to Erik Benjamin, something he had always wanted to do. One day, he decided to start writing again and found that he had never been happier than when he was sitting at his laptop, creating.