My stories and poems have been published in The New York Times, Boston Review, Best American Poetry, The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, Hobart, Identity Theory, and many other wonderful venues. My interviews, essays, and reviews at Electric Literature, Bookslut, 3:AM, Full Stop, Entropy, Poetry Society of America, and elsewhere. My first book, (made), is a hybrid micro prose/poem collection and was published by the Toronto indie publisher Book*hug. I have received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a bpNichol Prize. I wrote a series of posts on walking in the woods for the Best American Poetry website and am at work on book-length narrative nonfiction.

In addition to my own writing, I’ve been teaching and editing other writers for years. I love the writer’s life, truly. I spend mornings with my own work. After a lunch break, I boil water for tea and dig in to a client’s or student’s work. I’m a Manuscript Consultant and Instructor for Grub Street and lead workshops for Writing Workshops. I’ve been a Visiting Writer for The New York State Writers Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, Evergreen College, Kelly Writers House at UPENN, Stonecoast MFA, and Toronto New School of Writing. I have an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, a BA in Communications from Skidmore College, and a bunch of credits in Film and Television at NYU. I’ve performed in a few comedy improv groups and on the stage at Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC. I did a visual art exhibit in collaboration with Jon Lathrop using writing from my first book. And for eight years I ran a poetry class in a NY State Prison.

I say all this to say, I have and do work in multiple genres and mediums and consider it the blood of life.

Email: caralynnbenson [at] gmail
Twitter: @cbenson67