Bennett Sims
ABOUT the author
Bennett Sims was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is the author of the story collection Other Minds and Other Stories (2023), the novel A Questionable Shape (2013), which received the Bard Fiction Prize and was a finalist for The Believer Book Award, and the story collection White Dialogues (2017), winner of the Rome Prize for Literature 2018–19 and named a best book of 2017 by Bookforum. He is a recipient of a Michener-Copernicus Society Fellowship. His fiction has appeared in A Public Space, Conjunctions, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Zoetrope: All-Story, as well as in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. He has taught at Bard College, Grinnell College, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Available from Two Dollar Radio
Other Minds and Other Stories
"[Sims is] kind of like if Alfred Hitchcock and Brian Evenson raised a baby with David Foster Wallace and Nicholson Baker. Sims should be a household name in horror."
—Carmen Maria Machado, LitHub
White Dialogues
"Anyone who admires such pyrotechnics of language will find 21st-century echoes of Edgar Allan Poe in Sims’s portraits of paranoia and delusion, with their zodiacal narrowing and the maddening tungsten spin of their narratives."
—Hannah Pittard, New York Times Book Review
A Questionable Shape: New Classics Edition
"The smartest zombie novel since Colson Whitehead's Zone One."
—Ron Charles, Washington Post
Additional reading:
Electric Literature: Bennett Sims recommends "10 Books About Nonhuman Consciousness" | 11/14/2023
For Electric Literature, author Bennett Sims shares the 10 works he often revisited while writing his story collection Other Minds and Other Stories.
Watch a video of the author reading:
Watch author Bennett Sims featured in a reading and conversation with fellow author Carmen Maria Machado, for Sims' Other Minds and Other Stories, hosted by indie bookstore Prairie Lights (Iowa City, IA). (Nov 15, 2023)
Kenyon Review hosts author Bennett Sims, along with Marcela Fuentes and Hananah Zaheeran for their "Fall Fiction Reading" (Dec 2021). Watch Sims read an excerpt of the short story "Unknown" Other Minds and Other Stories: "UNKNOWN” by BENNETT SIMS
Interviews:
Our Culture Magazine: Bennett Sims, “Other Minds and Other Stories” | 11/16/2023
For Our Culture Magazine, Sam Franzini spoke with author Bennett Sims about his "time in Rome, influences, and playing with structure," and so much more!
Interview Magazine: Bennett Sims on Style, Sebald, and His New Short Story Collection | 11/17/2023
Ryan Ruby, for Interview Magazine, spoke with author Bennett Sims about "about some of the technical challenges and considerations involved in generating his new collection Other Minds and Other Stories," being a reader in our age of technology, the question of autofictional writing, and so much more!
Lincoln Michel's Counter Craft interview with Bennett Sims | 11/14/2023
"How Bennett Sims Wrote Other Minds and Other Stories: The author on literary traditions, writing habits, and “dilating individual moments to thick durations.”
Bookin' Podcast with Bennett Sims | 11/12/2023
This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning author Bennett Sims, who discusses his new book Other Minds and Other Stories. Topics of conversation include the University of Iowa, flash fiction, mummies, zombie novels, David Foster Wallace and Carmen Maria Machado, cell phones, Alfred Hitchcock, and much more. [Copies of Other Minds and Other Stories can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING for members of Explore More+.]
Green Apple Books interview with Bennett Sims | 7/10/2013
Green Apple Books talks with Bennett about footnotes, zombies, comparison books, and more!
Iowa Review: A Conversation with Bennett Sims | 8/13/2013
For the Iowa Review, Derek Heckman spoke with Sims about his debut novel A Questionable Shape, why zombies was the theme of choice, his history with writing, his influences, film theory, and more!
Q&A with Bennett Sims | 1/19/2017
We talk with Bennett about his forthcoming collection White Dialogues, his process for story writing, lowbrow vs. highbrow, and the influence of cinema on his work. Read on!
Full Stop Interview with Bennett Sims | 6/18/2013
Meredith Turits talks with Bennett Sims about his debut novel A Questionable Shape, philosophy, his hometown of Baton Rouge, and more!
The American Reader Interview with Bennett Sims | 2/10/2014
Nathan Goldman talks with Bennett about expectations for his novel A Questionable Shape, why zombies appeal to our culture, and more!
