News
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"If I Could Speak Chinese,"
on Narrative Magazine.
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"Murder One: Mad Dog Taborsky and Me,"
Notable Essay, Best American Essays 2009
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"Will Adopt Asian Girl, No Problem,"
on The Huffington Post.
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"Losing Mum and Pup,
A Liberal's Guilty Pleasure"
on The Rumpus
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Elizabeth Benedict on ABC Radio Australia talking about The Joy of Writing Sex, August 2009
The Rave Reviews Keep Coming...
Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives
A dazzling collection of original essays by 30 of today's most important writers about the people, events, and books that changed their lives.
"An irresistible anthology" - Booklist
"That rare gem..." - SF Chronicle
"Every one of the essays here is wise and full of heart" - Chicago Tribune
"Each writer shades in the nuances of character and experience that make his subject come to life, and each reads like a short story" -
Martha's Vineyard Times
Contributors: Michael Cunningham, Mary Gordon, Joyce Carol Oates, ZZ Packer, Julia Glass, Jane Smiley, Denis Johnson, Anita Shreve, Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Boyers, Jay Cantor, John Casey, Maud Casey, Christopher Castellani, Alexander Chee, Neil Gordon, Arnon Grunberg, Samantha Hunt, Margot Livesey, Dinaw Mengestu, Sigrid Nunez, Caryl Phillips, Carolyn See, Jim Shepard, Martha Southgate, Cheryl Strayed, Evelyn Toynton, Lily Tuck, Edmund White.
What to Read This Fall
Available in paperback. |
The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers is the classic guide to writing excellent sex scenes, used in writing programs in the US and abroad. With her characteristic wit and insight, Benedict offers practical advice on writing about sex, along with 45 examples from contemporary fiction, and interviews with 15 writers, including John Updike, Carol Shields, Alan Hollinghurst, Dorothy Allison, Russell Banks, Stephen McCauley, John Casey, and Edmund White. "Read it because it will teach you everything you need to know about writing good fiction, whether your characters are having sex or having breakfast. This book is a course unto itself, and Elizabeth Benedict is a very fine teacher." - Peter Carey |
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"Her wit is as sharp as her eye, and twice as fast. She writes the hard, horrifying truth about human nature, and it is addictively entertaining... A rare find...." - Newsday Available in paperback. |
"The great life of this book arises out of Benedict's judicious and sometimes startling mastery of language. The casual dialogue here and the descriptions of the ordinary remind me of Raymond Carver's short stories." - Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR Available in paperback. |
Other News Items
"Happy families are all alike. Every happy family touched by murder is shattered in its own distinctive way." Read Elizabeth Benedict's recent New York Times Op-Ed about her family history and the evolution of her thoughts on the death penalty.
Photo Essay: Taking Pictures After Writing Many Books. A collection of pictures by Elizabeth Benedict with a short introduction.
Look for Elizabeth Benedict's contribution to Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave (W.W. Norton) edited by Ellen Sussman.
Elizabeth Benedict's interview on Writers on Writing, UC Irvine's KUCI radio program with Barbara deMarco, recently became available for download here as part of KUCI Talk On Demand Archive.
Essays Available
Elizabeth Benedict's essay, "What I Learned About Sex On the Internet," published in Daedalus, was chosen as a Notable Essay of 2007, in The Best American Essays 2008 (Houghton Mifflin). Please click here for a free copy of the essay.
"Mad Dog Taborsky and Me," is Elizabeth Benedict's new essay in Daedalus on the effect of her uncle's infamous murder on her family. In 1960, Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky was the last man executed in New England for 45 years, until 2005. Benedict grew up haunted by the murder that took place two months before her parents' wedding, but did not learn the adult version of the story until after her parents died in recent years. Click here for a free copy of the essay.
Free MP3 Online
Elizabeth Benedict talking with Sigrid Nunez about editors, writers, and studying at Barnard with Elizabeth Hardwick. Click here to listen: part 1, part 2, part 3. This audio file is free to download but please contact info@elizabethbenedict.com for commercial use permission. This file is licensed to listeners by agreement of Creative Commons and is copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Benedict and Sigrid Nunez. All rights reserved.
