Literary offerings by Tantra Bensko
Sign up now for Intermediate Short Story Writing at UCLA X Writing Program begins July 9 online.
Chris Moran's review of Tantra's books at HTML GIANT
Interview at Women's Quarterly Conversation
Christopher Higgs interview on Experimental Writing at HTML GIANT
Yuriy Tarnawsky's review at The Collagist
Collapsible Horizon e-book now available
Forthcoming:
story in Dreadful Daughters: Women Writing the Weird Anthology
story in Cellar Door III: Animals Anthology
story in No Site for the Saved Anthology
story in Medusa's Laugh Cadavre Exquis Anthology
story in Ironic Fantastic 3 Anthology
story in Parsec Ink - Triangulation Anthology
story in The Darkness Internal
story in Holdfast Magazine
stories in Camroc Press Review
story in The Darkness Internal
stories in Camroc Press Review
story in Red Fez
stories in The Fabulist
story in Farther Stars than This
story in Imperial Youth Review
a story collection, Yard Man, from Make-Do Publishing
Study Writing or Receive Editing
Read articles, interviews, etc. on the writing throughout the site, and find more information about the classes, coaching, and editing, as well as links to writing suggestions and resources HERE.
Explore the Genre of Experimental Fiction
You can learn about it, enjoy it, puzzle over it, find places to submit, with extensive links to publishers, magazines, grants, contests, articles, and a magazine that explains it with examples. You can also read reviews, articles, interviews, etc. on the topic of Innovative Writing, HERE.
Genres
Types of stories published in journals, anthologies, and collections: Surrealism, Absurdism, Magical Realism, Slipstream, New Wave Fabulism, Contemporary Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Strange Tale, Weird, Neo-Noir, Gritty Realism, Literary, Experimental, Quantum, SF, Supernatural, Interstitial, Irreal.
Authors my work is most often compared to: Tom Robbins, Calvino, Borges, Barth, Donald Barthleme, Julio Cortezar
Authors my work is most often compared to: Tom Robbins, Calvino, Borges, Barth, Donald Barthleme, Julio Cortezar
Read or purchase LucidPlay Publishing books
Buy Books:
Buy signed print books from author
Collapsible Horizon New literary fiction interwoven short stories 12 dollars plus shipping.
Lucid Membrane (Night Publishing)25 plus shipping for color interior, and 10 plus shipping for B/W.
Buy from Amazon:
Collapsible Horizon print
Collapsible Horizon e-book
Buy Chapbooks:
The Cabinet of What You Don't See 5 dollars to ISMs Press
Watching the Windows Sleep 10 including shipping
Swinging on the Edge of Day from the tiny chapbook series at Naissance Press 5.00 including shipping
Buy Some Print Anthologies
Surreal South
Women Writing the Weird
Writing Without Walls Subterranea and Naked
North of Wakulla
Redacted Stories
Up, Do Flash Fiction Anthology of Women Writers
Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place
Writing Disorder Anthology II
Looking Back Anthology, Romanian
Buy Some Print Magazines:
Cosmopsis
Fabulist
Fiction International
Alchemy Review
And/Or (4)
Collapsible Horizon New literary fiction interwoven short stories 12 dollars plus shipping.
Lucid Membrane (Night Publishing)25 plus shipping for color interior, and 10 plus shipping for B/W.
Buy from Amazon:
Collapsible Horizon print
Collapsible Horizon e-book
Buy Chapbooks:
The Cabinet of What You Don't See 5 dollars to ISMs Press
Watching the Windows Sleep 10 including shipping
Swinging on the Edge of Day from the tiny chapbook series at Naissance Press 5.00 including shipping
Buy Some Print Anthologies
Surreal South
Women Writing the Weird
Writing Without Walls Subterranea and Naked
North of Wakulla
Redacted Stories
Up, Do Flash Fiction Anthology of Women Writers
Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place
Writing Disorder Anthology II
Looking Back Anthology, Romanian
Buy Some Print Magazines:
Cosmopsis
Fabulist
Fiction International
Alchemy Review
And/Or (4)
Some of the books and anthologies can be found here:
Membrane: "The analysis revealed objects, shaped like Frisbees or flying carpets, with two spatial dimensions: membranes . . . . The mathematics made clear that all of these entities could vibrate and wiggle, much like strings. . . . For the multiverse story, it is the branes that are central. Using them, researchers have been led by the hand to another variety of parallel universes. . . . In the braneworld scenario, our universe is just one of many that populate the Brane Universe." Brian Green The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
Free Books
Novella Equinox Mirror serialized at Bewildering Stories
E-chapbook of poetry: Liminal, by 10 Pages Press.
Richard Hugo's Use of Sound in Relation to Content in his Poetry A 150 page book of interest to Hugo fans and anyone wanting to learn more about how to make sound amplify meaning in prose or poetry.
Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts Anthology at Paraphilia Press including Kyle Muntz, Marc Lowe, Tom Bradley, Rachel Kendall, J.A. Tyler, and others edited by V. Ulea
Current project you can get involved by commenting on my Cell Phone Novel, Sound Rising, and affecting how the story goes. It won't be full novel length, but it will continue for a while. You can become a fan, follower, voter, commenter, and get it delivered if you like to your phone in small bits as they arise from the deep.
Crimson doesn't realize his story is leaking to the public, which changes their behavior and morphs the world around him, where he has to remain in isolation. Only his dream, and visitors, strange changes he sees through the invisible walls in the countryside on Steamboat Island, Washington by the water make him suspect something is up. But he can't leave until he's done with the story.
The leaks are going straight to you. Your comments can become incorporated into the tale, as he begins to learn how things outside his isolated shack are changing.
Some Stories and Poems in online
Lizard Back
"Frogs" Sein und Werden
"PhotoluminAssence" Poor Mojo's Almanac
"Hairilyzation" Poor Mojo's Almanac sequel to above story
"Mama" In Between Altered States
Poems Other Voices
"III" in Mad Hatters Review Annual
"Birdie" in Birkensnake
"To Explain the Sasquatch Sitter" in Ten Thousand Monkeys and Southern Hum
"Yard Man" The Cabinet of What You Don't See
Some of my Novellettes in magazines:
The Inhabitants of Mercy in Retort Magazine
Animals Under the Skin 1 in Bewildering Stories
part 2
part 3
Hairilyzation in Poor Mojo's Amanack
Sleeping with the Clan of Saints in Unlikely Stories
Going Out of Context with the Friends of the New Paradigm in Newtopia
I hope you find something in those links you enjoy. I have a couple hundred publications of stories and poems in journals and anthologies: thanks also to all the other publications in addition to the links above that have published my work, often multiple times, including these print and online publications: Carolina Quarterly, Chattahoochie Review, Florida Review,NonBinary Review A Grimm Collection of Modern Fairytales, Camroc Press Review, Medulla Review, The Writing Disorder, Metazen, Birkensnake, Threadcount, Carolina Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Hawaii Review, The Strange and the Curious, Zoetic Press's Alice in Wonderland, Cease, Cows, Literary Orphans, Stone Highway Review, Blue Five Notebook, Gone Lawn, Anenome Sidecar, 13 Myna Birds, Egophobia with translation into Romanian) Sun Dog, Innovative Fiction Magazine, Armageddon Buffet, Spittoon, New Dead Families, Counterexample Poetics, Abraxis, California Review, Iowa Review of Literary Studies, MiCrow, Southern Poetry Review, Memphis State Review, Short, Fast, and Deadly, TheNewerYork, Logascene, Pheonix, Babel, anthologies from Saturday Night Special Why There Are Words, Sun Dog, Cinncinati Poetry Review, Lucky Star, Appalachia Quarterly, Florida Review, Colorado State Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Louisville Review, Soma Literary Review, Magaera, Rose and Thorn, Newtopia, Cezanne's Carrot, Ten Thousand Monkeys, Mannequin Envy, Rattlesnake Review, Babel, Evergreen, Lit Chaos, Apalachee Quarterly, Spilt Milk, Net Author E2K, Thundersandwich, Dark Romance, Southern Hum, Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts anthology, Emerging Visions, Global Inner Visions, The Angler, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Fiction International, PunkPen, Ironic Fantastic e-book anthology 1 and 2, Orion Headless, REM, Dante's Heart, Evergreen Review, The Fabulist, Samizdat, Evergreen, Mad Hatters Review Magazine, Gone Lawn, Red Fez, A-Minor, WeirdYear, many Dogcast podcasts, and Red Fez..
Audio
Listen to many exclusive stories at Dog Cast, curated by Dave Migman, of Dog Horn all with my stories in them listed on this page.
"Green" in Unlikely Stories multi-media
"Accidental Voyeur" was in Mad Hatters Review
"Meditation on the Breath" The Change
"Alligator" e-Buffet
"Really" Egophobia
"PhotoluminAssance" Poor Mojo
Novella Equinox Mirror serialized at Bewildering Stories
E-chapbook of poetry: Liminal, by 10 Pages Press.
Richard Hugo's Use of Sound in Relation to Content in his Poetry A 150 page book of interest to Hugo fans and anyone wanting to learn more about how to make sound amplify meaning in prose or poetry.
Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts Anthology at Paraphilia Press including Kyle Muntz, Marc Lowe, Tom Bradley, Rachel Kendall, J.A. Tyler, and others edited by V. Ulea
Current project you can get involved by commenting on my Cell Phone Novel, Sound Rising, and affecting how the story goes. It won't be full novel length, but it will continue for a while. You can become a fan, follower, voter, commenter, and get it delivered if you like to your phone in small bits as they arise from the deep.
Crimson doesn't realize his story is leaking to the public, which changes their behavior and morphs the world around him, where he has to remain in isolation. Only his dream, and visitors, strange changes he sees through the invisible walls in the countryside on Steamboat Island, Washington by the water make him suspect something is up. But he can't leave until he's done with the story.
The leaks are going straight to you. Your comments can become incorporated into the tale, as he begins to learn how things outside his isolated shack are changing.
Some Stories and Poems in online
Lizard Back
"Frogs" Sein und Werden
"PhotoluminAssence" Poor Mojo's Almanac
"Hairilyzation" Poor Mojo's Almanac sequel to above story
"Mama" In Between Altered States
Poems Other Voices
"III" in Mad Hatters Review Annual
"Birdie" in Birkensnake
"To Explain the Sasquatch Sitter" in Ten Thousand Monkeys and Southern Hum
"Yard Man" The Cabinet of What You Don't See
Some of my Novellettes in magazines:
The Inhabitants of Mercy in Retort Magazine
Animals Under the Skin 1 in Bewildering Stories
part 2
part 3
Hairilyzation in Poor Mojo's Amanack
Sleeping with the Clan of Saints in Unlikely Stories
Going Out of Context with the Friends of the New Paradigm in Newtopia
I hope you find something in those links you enjoy. I have a couple hundred publications of stories and poems in journals and anthologies: thanks also to all the other publications in addition to the links above that have published my work, often multiple times, including these print and online publications: Carolina Quarterly, Chattahoochie Review, Florida Review,NonBinary Review A Grimm Collection of Modern Fairytales, Camroc Press Review, Medulla Review, The Writing Disorder, Metazen, Birkensnake, Threadcount, Carolina Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Hawaii Review, The Strange and the Curious, Zoetic Press's Alice in Wonderland, Cease, Cows, Literary Orphans, Stone Highway Review, Blue Five Notebook, Gone Lawn, Anenome Sidecar, 13 Myna Birds, Egophobia with translation into Romanian) Sun Dog, Innovative Fiction Magazine, Armageddon Buffet, Spittoon, New Dead Families, Counterexample Poetics, Abraxis, California Review, Iowa Review of Literary Studies, MiCrow, Southern Poetry Review, Memphis State Review, Short, Fast, and Deadly, TheNewerYork, Logascene, Pheonix, Babel, anthologies from Saturday Night Special Why There Are Words, Sun Dog, Cinncinati Poetry Review, Lucky Star, Appalachia Quarterly, Florida Review, Colorado State Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Louisville Review, Soma Literary Review, Magaera, Rose and Thorn, Newtopia, Cezanne's Carrot, Ten Thousand Monkeys, Mannequin Envy, Rattlesnake Review, Babel, Evergreen, Lit Chaos, Apalachee Quarterly, Spilt Milk, Net Author E2K, Thundersandwich, Dark Romance, Southern Hum, Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts anthology, Emerging Visions, Global Inner Visions, The Angler, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Fiction International, PunkPen, Ironic Fantastic e-book anthology 1 and 2, Orion Headless, REM, Dante's Heart, Evergreen Review, The Fabulist, Samizdat, Evergreen, Mad Hatters Review Magazine, Gone Lawn, Red Fez, A-Minor, WeirdYear, many Dogcast podcasts, and Red Fez..
Audio
Listen to many exclusive stories at Dog Cast, curated by Dave Migman, of Dog Horn all with my stories in them listed on this page.
"Green" in Unlikely Stories multi-media
"Accidental Voyeur" was in Mad Hatters Review
"Meditation on the Breath" The Change
"Alligator" e-Buffet
"Really" Egophobia
"PhotoluminAssance" Poor Mojo
Video of Recent Readings
Reading Fall Every Way We Can at Writing Without Walls Berkeley
Monastery Dolls Bay Area Generations SF
Drum Naked Writing Without Walls Berkeley
Red Story Come on 7 Chicago
Godhead: Confessional Booth @Now San Diego
Reading at Bernal Literary Series
Samizdat Berkeley
Monastery Dolls Bay Area Generations SF
Drum Naked Writing Without Walls Berkeley
Red Story Come on 7 Chicago
Godhead: Confessional Booth @Now San Diego
Reading at Bernal Literary Series
Samizdat Berkeley
Recent Readings
Upcoming: Featured reader at Lyrics and Dirges, Pegasus, Berkeley, TBA.
I've read at these venues within the last three years:
with The Fabulist at Why There Are Words in Sausalito's Studio 333, at Hotel Rex, SF with Bay Area Generations,
Spice Monkey Cafe for Samizdat, Oakland
n/a gallery, Oakland for Birkensnake,
Bernal Yoga Literary Series, S.F.,
Book Zoo, with Janice Lee and Anna Joy Springer for Dog Horn, Oakland
Writing Without Walls at Subterranean Art House in Berkeley
and Oakland Public Conservatory of Music),
&Now Festival of New Writing: Tomorrowland Forever, in San Diego,
Single reader at University Press Books in Berkeley,
Pasaje Rodríguez, with &Now Festival participants, Tijuana
and at the Ballroom of the Chicago Institute of Art in Chicago, AWP, with Lance Olson, Eckard Gerdes, A.D. Jameson, Yuriy Tarnawsky, James R. Hugunin, and Davis Schneiderman.
I've read at these venues within the last three years:
with The Fabulist at Why There Are Words in Sausalito's Studio 333, at Hotel Rex, SF with Bay Area Generations,
Spice Monkey Cafe for Samizdat, Oakland
n/a gallery, Oakland for Birkensnake,
Bernal Yoga Literary Series, S.F.,
Book Zoo, with Janice Lee and Anna Joy Springer for Dog Horn, Oakland
Writing Without Walls at Subterranean Art House in Berkeley
and Oakland Public Conservatory of Music),
&Now Festival of New Writing: Tomorrowland Forever, in San Diego,
Single reader at University Press Books in Berkeley,
Pasaje Rodríguez, with &Now Festival participants, Tijuana
and at the Ballroom of the Chicago Institute of Art in Chicago, AWP, with Lance Olson, Eckard Gerdes, A.D. Jameson, Yuriy Tarnawsky, James R. Hugunin, and Davis Schneiderman.
Awards
Carolina Quarterly -- the Academy of American Poets Award, Cezanne's Carrot where I won two awards, Punkpen, The Iowa Journal of Literary Studies, and the Oblongata Award from Medulla Review. I was nominated for Pushcart by Blue Five, Rose and Thorn, A-Minor, and Metazen which also nominated me for Best of the Net.
Education
Education: During High School, I was awarded a writing class at a University in Indiana. They offered me a full scholarship based on my writing, but I moved to the South instead. There, I studied at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, then took writing classes at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia, obtained my BA and MA in English from FSU. I later was recruited as the number one choice in the MFA program at the University of Iowa Writing Program, while I earned a living teaching there until I graduated.
Teaching
Florida State University 2 years
Memphis State University 2 years
University of Iowa 2 years
UCLA X Writing Program 4 years ongoing -- upcoming: Intermediate Short Story Writing July 9
Writers College 4 years so far -- Experimental Fiction
Lit Demon class 2014 in New Wave Fabulism
Tantra Bensko's Online Writing Academy 3 years ongoing
Birmingham, Alabama school system guest teacher 2011
Kaleidescope program at LeBonneur children's hospital several months
Memphis State University 2 years
University of Iowa 2 years
UCLA X Writing Program 4 years ongoing -- upcoming: Intermediate Short Story Writing July 9
Writers College 4 years so far -- Experimental Fiction
Lit Demon class 2014 in New Wave Fabulism
Tantra Bensko's Online Writing Academy 3 years ongoing
Birmingham, Alabama school system guest teacher 2011
Kaleidescope program at LeBonneur children's hospital several months
