Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender
Aimee Benderis an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal plots and characters...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 June 1969
CountryUnited States of America
mom daughter brother
Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.
rope band stories
My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen." — Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)
believe passion thinking
But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was candles, did she think she'd done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips, and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?
gratitude someone-you-love barometer
To see someone you love, in a bad setting, is one of the great barometers of gratitude.
clothes dating skins
I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food I could because my clothes would be staying on.
space two stride
I admired that stride; it was like he folded space in two with it.
consequences magical pleasures
For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.
artifice half maybe move plays
I did plays in college, and I have half of a play. But I'm kind of stuck. I keep revisiting it so maybe it will move somewhere. There's something about plays where you can feel that sense of artifice at any moment.
ability cool describe experience figure human interested metaphor mine move tend
I don't eschew autobiographical writing, but I'm not interested in mine to be so straightforward. The things that tend to move me the most are often those that I have to figure out its meaning for myself. The human being's ability to make a metaphor to describe a human experience is just really cool.
act experience interested myopic trying
I get a little myopic in the act of doing any writing. I think I'm not as interested or not as able to write about balance, because I think there's something I want to try to get at. I'm trying to get at something about the experience of growing up or about families.
computer earlier failed fiction front good honest hours humbling keeps knowing teaching
I think teaching keeps me honest because if I'm up in front of a class talking about what I think is important about fiction while knowing I myself have just failed to do that hours earlier at my computer - it's a good and humbling reminder.
balancing novels pages stressful
Novels are so much unrulier and more stressful to write. A short story can last two pages and then it's over, and that's kind of a relief. I really like balancing the two.
want insight
I want to be violated by insight.
smart heart brain
We're all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there's too much thought and not enough heart.