Erica Elisabeth Arendt Harvor (née Deichmann) is a Canadian novelist and poet who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, where she grew up on the Kingston Peninsula. She enrolled at Concordia University in 1983, receiving an MA in Creative Writing in 1986. She has also won many awards for her fiction and poetry. Her short story collection Let Me Be the One was a finalist for the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award. Fortress of Chairs, her first book of poems, won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry written by a Canadian writer in 1992. Her second poetry book, The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring, was a finalist for the Lowther Award in 1997, and her first novel, Excessive Joy Injures the Heart, was chosen one of the ten best bo