Aimee Bender (born June 28, 1969) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal stories and characters. She is a 2011 recipient of theAlex Awards.

Born to aJewish family,^[2] Bender received her undergraduate degree from theUniversity of California at San Diego, and aMaster of Fine Arts from the creative writing MFA program atUniversity of California at Irvine. While at UCI she studied withJudith Grossman andGeoffrey Wolff. She receivedArtsBridge scholarships and worked with mentorKeith Fowler to create writing programs for K-12 students in Orange County, California. She currently teaches creative writing at theUniversity of Southern California where she served as Director of theUSC PhD in Creative Writing & Literature from 2012 to 2015. In the past, she taught a class in surrealist writing at theUCLA Extension Writers' Program and was a senior artist at the non-profit theater workshop The Imagination Workshop, helping mentally ill and at-risk individuals write, direct and act in their own theatrical creations. She has namedOscar Wilde,Hans Christian Andersen, theBrothers Grimm andAnne Sexton as influences on her writing. A native of Los Angeles, Bender is a close friend of fellow UCI alumnaAlice Sebold. Her sister is novelist and short story writerKaren Bender.^[3]

Her first book wasThe Girl in the Flammable Skirt, a collection of short stories, published in 1998. The book was chosen as aNew York Times Notable Book of 1998 and spent seven weeks on theLos Angeles Times bestseller list. Her novelAn Invisible Sign of My Own was published in 2000, and was named as aLos Angeles Times Pick of the Year. In 2005, she published another collection of short stories,Willful Creatures, which was nominated byThe Believer magazine – owned byMcSweeney's — as one of the Best Books of the Year. Her novellaThe Third Elevator was published in 2009 by Madras Press. Her novelThe Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake was published in 2010 byDoubleday.

Bender has received twoPushcart Prizes, and was nominated for theJames Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2005. Her short story,Faces was a 2009Shirley Jackson Award finalist. In 2009, Bender became the sitting judge for the Flatmancrooked Writing Prize, a writing award from Flatmancrooked Publishing for new short fiction.

Bender's works have also been published inGranta,GQ,Harper's Magazine,Tin House,Opium Magazine,McSweeney's,The Paris Review,The Coffin Factory, and several anthologies. She has also been heard onThis American Life andSelected Shorts.^[4]

• —— (1998).The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Knopf.ISBN 9780385492164.
• —— (2001).An Invisible Sign of My Own. Knopf.ISBN 9780385492249.
• —— (2005).Willful Creatures. Knopf.ISBN 9780385720977.
• —— (2009).The Third Elevator. Catapult.ISBN 9780982525401.
• —— (2010).The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Knopf.ISBN 9780385501125.
• —— (2013).The Color Master. Knopf.ISBN 9780385534895.
• —— (2020).The Butterfly Lampshade. Knopf.ISBN 9780385534871.

• Official website
• Aimee Bender atLibrary of Congress, with 10 library catalog records
• Aimee Bender at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database

• 1969 births
• Living people
• 20th-century American academics
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century American novelists
• 20th-century American short story writers
• 20th-century American women novelists
• 21st-century American academics
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American novelists
• 21st-century American short story writers
• 21st-century American women novelists
• American women academics
• American women short story writers
• Jewish American academics
• Jewish American novelists
• Jewish American short story writers
• Jewish American women writers
• University of California, Irvine alumni
• University of Southern California faculty
• University of Southern California people

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from December 2024
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from October 2019
• Place of birth missing (living people)