Tag Archives: Karen Bender

Write a story a great writer would write. Because part of becoming an artist is pushing through all the disbelief of those around you, deciding that you are a writer when you have no idea what a plot is or whether what you've written is any good, or anything. Karen Bender

Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism. Karen Bender

I was in graduate school. I had a birth control accident and went to get the morning after pill. Karen Bender

When I wrote my stories in elementary school, I signed them all 'Karen E. Bender' with the squiggly 'E.' I wanted, from an early age, to be a writer, and that name – that E – was a way of pretending I knew how to do it. Karen Bender

I wrote lots of pages. I showed what I wrote to Iowa friends, and they said, 'Good start.' That was discouraging because I thought it was almost done. Karen Bender

You sit at your computer for hours, then slave away at your job that you may or may not like. You don't know how to explain to them that the time when you feel alive or present is when you are writing. Karen Bender

My first published work was when I was 19, in 'Playgirl.' It was an odd experience but exciting. Karen Bender

At one point, I had a story accepted at the 'New Yorker,' which sent off weird bells in people when I told them – 'Oh,' they thought, 'now you are a writer' – where I really had been for the last 30-odd years. Karen Bender

It's great being married to a writer. You live with someone who can read your work and help you. Karen Bender

The word inventors have to create a new term to describe how I felt when I learned that 'Refund' was on the shortlist for the Frank O'Connor International Story prize – Excited, thrilled, honored, none of them quite do it. Karen Bender