Erin Magnin
Established
Music: Contemporary Performance
Newark
"My songwriting is inspired by nature, the way humans interact with the earth, and the way our cycles mirror each other – life and death, growth and decay."
Work Samples
About the Artist
Written by Gail Obenreder
Singer/songwriter Erin Magnin has “always loved music and especially loved to sing.” When she was young, her mother took her to see musical theatre productions, “undeniably a huge influence on my writing style.” But her house was also filled with music – both parents often played folk music at home or in the car. She listened to her father’s gift of K.D. Lang and Joni Mitchell CDs again and again, and in high school Magnin heard a lot of pop punk. All these influences mean that “there’s a very fun mash-up of genres going on in my head.”
A Newark resident, Magnin has lived in Delaware “essentially all my life.” She attended college in Washington DC for a year but returned to The First State to enroll at the University of Delaware in the music education program, but “through a fun technicality” she graduated instead with a music degree. This “happy accident” focused her on performing, especially in The Honey Badgers duo. Magnin is now a full-time performer and songwriter, a leap she decided to take in 2019, citing it as “one of the best choices of my life.” She has released four EPs and two full-length albums and consistently tours the country.
Being a full-time musician presents challenges when “the lines between art and business get blurred.” Balancing artistic integrity and finances can be “a tough line to walk,” but Magnin feels she’s achieving a satisfying balance. And since she “wears a lot of hats – booking, marketing, recording, performing” – writing her music can “sometimes fall by the wayside.”
She finds that some songs “come very easily and seem to flow from some other entity entirely,” but other songs “make you work for it.” But puzzling out each composition is enormously gratifying. And Magnin loves performing live to an attentive audience, speaking with people after a show, and “learning how a song has touched them, or made them think, or brought back a memory that means something to them.
Magnin has received over a dozen awards at folk festivals and showcases throughout the region. Her latest album, The Earth Turns and So Do We, was released in 2024, and in 2025 she released a new single titled Summer Skin. But her most recent project, still underway, is one that looks to the past. Her great-great-grandmother Amelia Black decided to leave a traditional marriage and her young children, and the mystery of why that occurred and what happened is a fascinating subject.
Currently researching and writing an album about women from the past and how they relate to us now, Magnin plans to use the Division’s award to explore these subjects more fully in song. “It would be an honor to use my voice to shine a light on these ordinary women living extraordinary lives.” It’s a continuation of her current artistic practice, but the welcome Fellowship will also allow her “to branch off in a slightly new direction.” Honored to be a part of this year’s cohort, Magnin “can’t wait for all the amazing art that will come of [this] group.”