Ehrlich debuted in 1985 with The Solace of Open Spaces, a collection of essays on rural life in Wyoming.
[5] Her first novel was also set in Wyoming, entitled Heart Mountain (1988), about a community being invaded by an internment camp for Japanese Americans.
One of Ehrlich's best-received books is a volume of creative nonfiction essays called Islands, The Universe, Home.
Her characteristic style of merging intense, vivid, factual observations of nature with a wryly mystical personal voice is evident in this work.
In 1991, she collaborated with British choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing and recording a poem cycle for a ballet that opened in the Southbank Centre in London.