DIVDIVElizabeth Benedict is a novelist, essayist, editor, and creative writing teacher. Her novels include the bestsellerย Almost, the National Book Award finalistย Slow Dancing, and her most recent,ย The Practice of Deceit, which theย Boston Globeย called โa wickedly funny literary suspense novel.โ In theย Chicago Tribune, Anne Tyler praised her second novel,ย The Beginnerโs Book of Dreams, for โthe world it spreads before us,โ which is โcomplex, fascinating, bewildering, sometimes morbidly funny, always unlaid with pain. The marvel is that such a sad book could be such a joy to read.โ Benedictโs essays and reviews have appeared in theย New York Times, theย Huffington Post, theย Rumpus,ย Esquire,ย Allure,ย Harperโs Bazaar,ย Salmagundi, andย Dรฆdalus. She is the editor of two anthologies: Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives, and theย New York Timesย bestsellerย What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most./divDIV
Benedict has taught creative writing at Princeton, Columbia, Swarthmore, Massachussets Institute of Technology, and the Iowa Writersโ Workshop. She teaches every summer at the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore, and works year round as a writing coach and editor. ย Learn more about Benedict and her work at elizabethbenedict.com and DontSweatTheEssay.com./div/div