Over the weekend, master of the contemporary American short story Aimee Bender delivered the keynote presentation at Las Vegas’ largest literary event: the Vegas Valley Book Festival. The pick couldn’t have been more fitting: Bender’s writing is as quirky, energizing, and hypnotizing as Las Vegas itself.
Author Aimee Bender.
Bender’s keynote address came one year after the publication of The Color Master, her latest series of short stories featuring outrageous, magical realist plot lines (a human woman’s ogre husband accidentally eating their offspring, for instance, or a dressmaker whose creations reflect the color of the Sun and Moon). Bender’s previous titles include The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures,and her beloved 2010 bestseller The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.
Bender has won two Pushcart prizes and been nominated for the Tiptree and the Shirley Jackson short story awards. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. For more information on her upcoming speaking events, contact Books In Common.
