Picture of author.
12+ Works 1,042 Membros 69 Reviews

About the Author

Elizabeth Benedict is the author of four novels, including Slow Dancing, which was a finalist for the American Book Award. Her short story Feasting was chosen for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She has taught fiction writing at Princeton University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, mostrar mais the New School for Social Research, and Swarthmore College. She lives in New York City. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos

Includes the name: Elizabeth Benedict

Obras de Elizabeth Benedict

Almost (2001) 218 cópias
Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession (2015) — Editor; Contribuinte — 139 cópias
The Practice of Deceit (2005) 128 cópias
What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most (2013) — Editor; Contribuinte — 95 cópias
Slow Dancing (1985) 23 cópias
Safe Conduct (1993) 13 cópias
Rewriting Illness (2023) 7 cópias
FAQ (short work) 1 exemplar(es)

Associated Works

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
20thc
Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
USA
Locais de residência
New York, New York, USA
Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
Ocupação
Writing teacher

Membros

Resenhas

What I kept thinking of as a flaw in this book--the lack of author photos--turned out to be one of the things that made it great, because each time I started reading a new essay I just had to google its author. Although there is a contributors list at the end with brief bios, it was impossible to read a bunch of essays about women and their hair without wanting to know what each woman (and her hair) looked like. Inevitably, I read a bit about each of them too, and thus got to know a whole slew of authors who were new to me, and got re-acquainted with others (Jane Smiley, Anne Lamott, Deborah Tannen) on a different footing from any previous contacts I'd had with them. The collection also got me thinking about my own history with and feelings about my hair, and it turns out that hair is a pretty meaty subject!

There's a great interview with editor Elizabeth Benedict here: http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/10/04/a-new-book-uncovers-the-co.... I don't want to confirm the fear she mentions in the last question by talking superficially about her hair, but as a person who liberated myself from hair dye a couple of years back myself, I was delighted, when doing the above mentioned googling, to find that she had decided to go gray after writing her essay about not going gray for the collection. Just like Joan Baez, she looks fantastic gray.

Finally, I loved this book because my fabulous-haired best friend gave it to me, and had it signed for me by Ms. Benedict. What better present could a girl ask for?
… (mais)
 
Marcado
CaitlinMcC | outras 33 resenhas | Jul 11, 2021 |
What My Mother Gave Me completely blew off all my windows and doors. It's not just that it made me think about the many things, tangible and intangible, that my mother (who has been gone now for 4 years) gave me, although it did do that. It's that the voices of the writers who contributed to its pages made me think about the many and varied ways there are to be a woman. All of these writers, and certainly their many mothers, have lived rich and fascinating lives. Whether I felt kinship with them over the things their mothers gave them that mattered most or not, it was a privilege to get each woman's take on this most pivotal relationship and to catch glimpses of so many different kinds of women's lives.

I finished reading What My Mother Gave Me in a fancy hotel room with a balcony overlooking the sea. My urge to come back to this east coast beach town--a place my family and I went to for the first and last time a little over three years ago to mark the first anniversary of my mother's death--grew and grew as I read. So, when the opportunity presented itself to dash off here for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance. My mother was never in this town or at this hotel that I know of, but we scattered my father's, my brother's, and, finally, her own ashes in the sea as each of them died because that way, by her reckoning, "whenever you're near the water, you're close to the person who died." That idea was foreign to me when she first proposed it when my father died many years ago, and, as a lifelong lover of cemeteries (So peaceful! So quiet! So sad!), I wasn't sure I agreed. As with so many other things, though, she was right. My mother gave me lots of things and ideas that matter more than I ever would have guessed they would at the times she gave them, but that one may be the one that matters most. That, and knowing to always go to a fancy hotel by the sea when you want to, even if you can't really afford it and common wisdom would say that you shouldn't. "You deserve it," was one of my mother's favorite refrains, and also, "Je ne regrette rien." Thanks, Mom!
… (mais)
 
Marcado
CaitlinMcC | outras 17 resenhas | Jul 11, 2021 |
 
Marcado
baruthcook | outras 4 resenhas | Aug 26, 2020 |

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Jane Smiley Contributor
Joyce Carol Oates Contributor
Mary Gordon Contributor
Julia Fierro Contributor
Deborah Hofmann Contributor
Anne Kreamer Contributor
Maria Hofmann Contributor
Marita Golden Contributor
Patricia Volk Contributor
Elizabeth Searle Contributor
Hallie Ephron Contributor
Anne Lamott Contributor
Emma Gilbey Keller Contributor
Ru Freeman Contributor
Rebecca Goldstein Contributor
Suleika Jaouad Contributor
Rebecca Goldstein Contributor
Katie Hafner Contributor
Myra Goldberg Contributor
Bharati Mukherjee Contributor
Siri Hustvedt Contributor
Deborah Feldman Contributor
Deborah Tannen Contributor
Alex Kuczynski Contributor
Honor Moore Contributor
Rosie Schaap Contributor
Jane Green Contributor
Adriana Trigiani Contributor
Maria Hinojosa Contributor
Eleanor Clift Contributor
Abigail Pogrebin Contributor
Emma Straub Contributor
Mary Morris Contributor
Margo Jefferson Contributor
Dahlia Lithwick Contributor
Lillian Daniel Contributor
Sheila Kohler Contributor
Charlotte Silver Contributor
Maud Newton Contributor
Susan Stamberg Contributor
Cecilia Munoz Contributor
Karen Karbo Contributor
Luanne Rice Contributor
Rita Dove Contributor
Katha Pollitt Contributor
Caroline Leavitt Contributor
Mameve Medwed Contributor
Elinor Lipman Contributor
Roxana Robinson Contributor
Martha McPhee Contributor
Lisa See Contributor
Marge Piercy Contributor
Elissa Schappell Contributor
Ann Hood Contributor
Julia Glass Contributor
Carolyn See Contributor
Denis Johnson Contributor
Edmund White Contributor
Michael Cunningham Contributor
Margot Livesey Contributor
ZZ Packer Contributor
Caryl Phillips Contributor
Lily Tuck Contributor
Sigrid Nunez Contributor
Evelyn Toynton Contributor
Arnon Grunberg Contributor
Cheryl Strayed Contributor
John Casey Contributor
Jim Shepard Contributor
Jay Cantor Contributor
Maud Casey Contributor
Robert Boyers Contributor
Dinaw Mengestu Contributor
Martha Southgate Contributor
Anita Shreve Contributor
Alexander Chee Contributor
Samantha Hunt Contributor
Neil Gordon Contributor

Estatísticas

Obras
12
Also by
4
Membros
1,042
Popularidade
#24,715
Avaliação
½ 3.5
Resenhas
69
ISBNs
45
Idiomas
2

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