Karen Bender

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Karen Bender
NationalityAmerican
GenreNovels, short stories
Notable awardsRona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award

Karen E. Bender is an American novelist and short story writer.

Biography[edit]

Karen E. Bender is the author of the short story collection Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award in fiction for 2015,[1] and on the shortlist for the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award,[2] and the novels A Town of Empty Rooms and Like Normal People; Like Normal People was a Los Angeles Times Bestseller, and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Both her collections Refund and The New Order were Longlisted for The Story Prize.[3][4]

Writing about "A Town of Empty Rooms," reviewer S. Kirk Walsh said in the Boston Globe,

In the very best of fiction, an intimate, spiritual communion momentarily transpires between reader and author. In the case of Bender’s novel, these moments occur during these flawless passages of authentic longing and isolation. Like some of today’s best contemporary realistic authors, Bender skillfully excavates and animates the human fragilities and missteps of life, transporting the reader deeper into the narrative and the interior lives of her characters.[5]

Bender has taught fiction writing for the MFA programs at Hollins University, Chatham University, Tunghai University in Taiwan, and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is on the Core faculty for Alma College and is a Visiting Writer at the MFA program at SUNY Stony Brook.

[6] She has received grants from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also co-editor of the nonfiction anthology Choice.[7]

Her short stories have appeared in magazines, including The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares,[8] Zoetrope, Story, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, Narrative, The Harvard Review and The Iowa Review. Her fiction has been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South and The Pushcart Prize series and has been read as part of the "Selected Short" series at Symphony Space in New York. Her work has also been read by Levar Burton as part of his series "Levar Burton Reads."

She has written nonfiction for The New York Times,[9] Real Simple,[10] O magazine [11] and others.

Her sister is novelist and short story writer Aimee Bender.[12]

Works[edit]

  • The Fourth Prussian Dynasty, The New Yorker, 1999
  • Like Normal People, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000. ISBN 978-0-618-12692-7 OCLC 47232137
  • A town of empty rooms, Berkeley, CA Counterpoint 2013. ISBN 9781619020696, OCLC 944086783
  • Refund : stories, Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint Press, 2015. ISBN 9781619024557, OCLC 982157196
  • New Order : Stories., Counterpoint Press 2018. ISBN 9781640090996, OCLC 1077238067

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Refund: Finalist, National Book Awards 2015 for Fiction". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  2. ^ "FOC Award". Munsterlit.ie. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  3. ^ "The Story Prize Long List for Collections Published in 2015". TSP Blog. The Story Prize. 30 January 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  4. ^ "The Story Prize Longlist for Short Story Collections Published in 2018". TSP Blog. The Story Prize. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  5. ^ "Book review: 'A Town of Empty Rooms,' by Karen E. Bender - The Boston Globe". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  6. ^ "Writers Corner, NEA". Archived from the original on 21 June 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  7. ^ "Karen E. Bender - Official website of author Karen E. Bender". karenebender.com. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  8. ^ "Read By Author - Ploughshares". www.pshares.org. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  9. ^ Bender, Karen E. (25 January 2013). "The Accidental Writer". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  10. ^ "What My Family Learned From a Year of Living With Creepy Houseguests". Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  11. ^ "The Green Road". Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  12. ^ Berry, Harrison (Mar 10, 2017). "Bender Sisters Discuss Ambiguity of Cats, Writing for Fangoria and Empathy at Egyptian Theatre." Boise Weekly. Retrieved January 9, 2024.

External links[edit]

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