At UCLA Erickson studied literature, film, journalism and political philosophy, and for a few years he worked as a freelance writer for alternative weekly newspapers.
"[3] His work has been cited by Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, Dana Spiotta, William Gibson, Kathy Acker, Rick Moody, Joshua Cohen and Mark Z. Danielewski.
Greil Marcus has called Erickson "the only authentic American surrealist," and Tours of the Black Clock appears on Larry McCaffery's list of the 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction.
[5] In 2021, the University Press of Mississippi issued Conversations With Steve Erickson as part of a series that includes William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, William S. Burroughs and Toni Morrison, proclaiming Erickson "a subterranean literary figure...[whose] dream-fueled blend of European modernism, American pulp and paranoid late-century postmodernism makes him essential to an appreciation of the last 40 years of American fiction.
"[6] BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of Shadowbahn as part of its Dangerous Visions series in 2018, and a motion picture of Zeroville starring James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jacki Weaver was released in 2019.