Ben Bush

Benjamin Bush is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Southern California English and Creative Writing PhD program and the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship (Bulgaria). His writing has appeared in the Believer, Bookforum, The Iowa Review, The Literary Review, Poets & Writers, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Alternet, and Conversations with William T. Vollmann (University Press of Mississippi). He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Truman Capote Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Key West Literary Seminars, and Sozopol Fiction Seminars. He is the former managing editor of McSweeney’s/The Believer’s The Organist podcast from KCRW (NPR-LA). He taught creative writing in Morocco through funding from the International Writing Program. He currently teaches at the University of Southern California and Mount St. Mary’s University MFA program.

email: benjaminhbush at gmail dot com

Fiction

“Introverts” The Iowa Review

“Succumb Your Thumb” Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“The Overseer” The Literary Review / The Fanzine

“> <“ The Literary Review

“Seven Bedtimes for Seven Bonzos” Yeti

“Firewater & Firecrackers,” The Dogs (Karyn Lovegrove Gallery)

Interviews

Louis Chude-Sokei, The Organist (KCRW/McSweeney’s/The Believer.)

T. Geronimo Johnson, Los Angeles Review of Books

Joshua Cohen, Los Angeles Review of Books

William Vollmann, Bookforum (And, many years earlier in Poets & Writers.)

Camden Joy / Tom Adelman, Bookforum

Doseone in The Believer

Tom Bissell on Uzbekistan for Alternet

Paul Beatty, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Chalmers Johnson, Clamor

Dennis Cooper, 14 Hills

“What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Kim Jong Il Bashing?” Bruce Cumings on Korean history and politics.

Articles

Review of N. Katherine Hayles’ Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary

“Like Trenton Without the Thrills” (on pseudonyms and the writing of Camden Joy / Tom Adelman), Los Angeles Review of Books.

“Kill or Be Killed: How to Die in Horror and Action Movies” (applying ideas from Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws and other scholars), Kitchen Sink

“The GOP’s Gun Control Hypocrisy” Salon

“Chronicling Conflict” (profile on photojournalist Mimi Chakarova), Bitch / Alternet

“Vonnegut Inspired to Some Invective,” San Francisco Chronicle

Reviews and profiles for XLR8R

Book reviews for tbe Portland Mercury

Panels

“The Emotional Currency of International Writing Programs,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs, virtual, 2021

Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies (Green Conference), Los Angeles 2020 (Paper: “Omissions from the Record: Amitav Ghosh and the Literary Absence of Climate Change and Oil Production”)

“For the Editing with Love and Fear,” Sozopol Fiction Seminars, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2016. Panelists: Barbara Epler (New Directions), Anna Kelly (HarperCollins UK), Anne Meadows (Granta), Georgi Gospodinov, Manol Peykov (Janet 45)

“Ode to Joy: The Career of Camden Joy,” Midwest Modern Language Association, Milwaukee, 2013 (co-panelists: Samuel Cohen, Trinie Dalton, Adam Wilson, David N. Meyer).

Journalism:

Former reporter at the Martinez News-Gazette.

Ben Bush

Fiction, Essays, Interviews