Michael Erard, PhD

Michael Erard is a linguist and non-fiction writer. He is the author of three books about language, the most recent of which is Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words, which The Economist called "beautiful" and "strangely comforting." Other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Science, The Atlantic, Aeon, Texas Observer, and elsewhere. He graduated from Williams College and has an MA and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His work has been recognised with awards and fellowships from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Linguistics Society of America, the Max Planck Society, and the US National Endowment for the Humanities. Originally from the US, he now makes his home in the Netherlands, where he is a researcher at the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University. He is also training to become an end of life doula.