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Articles by Karen Bender
Citrus County Audubon Society to kick off new fall season
The Citrus County Audubon Society begins an exciting new fall season Thursday, Sept. 10, at 3 p.m. at a new location in Cornerstone Baptist Church, 1100 W Highland Blvd., Inverness. We have outgrown our previous meeting place thanks to all the new members that have joined this past year. Please come to any of the meetings listed below and enjoy our guest speakers. On Sept.
I used to be an Expat, now I’m just a Misfit
In Spring of 2023 my family and I moved from the Midwest United States to The Netherlands. 2 adults, 2 small kids, 2 cats, and 11 suitcases. It was a lot. Our time in The Netherlands was quite a rollercoaster- some great highs but also some difficult lows. Being an expat is really hard. The logistics of starting life over in a new country are exhausting. You’re all alone without your old network. And the culture shock makes you miss the strangest things. Like double acting baking powder.
Karen E. Bender on Channeling Contemporary Anxieties Through Speculative Fiction
My last Lit Hub conversation with Karen E. Bender was in 2018, just before her collection The New Order was published. She mentioned that she read John Cheever’s short stories in graduate school: “Cheever’s sentences just made my brain light up. He packs more into a paragraph—about love, longing, loss, mortality—than most writers can fit into an entire story or novel.
THE WORDS OF DR. L
Highly original stories that speak to the challenges of being human in the 21st century. A collection of stories that artfully reframe issues including parenting, aging, illness, and life during the Covid-19 pandemic. “He hypnotized me, and I loved him”: That’s the beginning of “The Hypnotist,” a story about the narrator’s lifelong connection with her father.
Guilt and Envy: When We Compare Ourselves to Others with MS
I’ve felt guilty and envious, lucky and jinxed. Multiple sclerosis, like life, doesn’t deal everyone the same hand. We all know that we shouldn’t judge ourselves based on how our peers are doing. Everyone is different, everyone has unique strengths and weaknesses, blah, blah, blah. But it’s tough to do, isn’t it? When I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), I couldn’t help but look around and feel downtrodden. I was just 29 at the time.
The Surprising Secret to Finding Peace with MS
My multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms mean I ask a lot from the people in my life. And well-meaning others sometimes make things worse. In both cases, forgiveness helps transform the experience. MS demands a lot of us. It demands that we endure chronic symptoms. It demands we stay on treatment when we want to give up. And it demands we make peace with our — and others’ — limitations. For many, the “making peace” part of the puzzle is the most challenging.
The Slow Scope Creep of Multiple Sclerosis
Little by little, MS takes more and more from me. Years ago, when I worked for a health communications firm, my manager would remind our team to be careful about “scope creep.” If we were under contract to design a poster, for example, she’d say that’s all we were to do — just the design! We couldn’t help the client with the printing, mailing, or promotion. Even if new asks were small and happened slowly over many weeks, my manager eventually warned that scope creep would catch up to us.
The Words of Dr. L
Hardcover Ebook On Sale: | $27 9781640095700 | Hardcover 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 | 304 pages On Sale: | $14.99 9781640095717 | Ebook | 304 pages National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with a story collection that uses both a realistic and a speculative lens to explore a universal situation—the ways parents and children separate at different times of life Grounded in both the contemporary United States and a variety of dystopias, the new stories in Karen E.
The Different Types, Explained
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) remains the gold standard for diagnosing MS and monitoring disease activity. But MRIs can differ in the type of experience and image clarity they offer. The MRI. It is the most sensitive, noninvasive device currently available to image the brain and spinal cord.
MS Research is Encouraging, But Be Sure to Read Beyond the Headlines
I saw a headline that suggested it might. But I quickly learned that the headlines often don’t tell the whole story. I’ve been living with multiple sclerosis (MS) for almost 30 years now, so I’m always on the lookout for new research about the disease. Discoveries give me hope. They show me that scientists are continuing to advance their understanding of MS and find new ways to try to prevent, treat, and — maybe one day — cure it.
How Hollywood Spokespeople Change the Conversation
Stars — they’re just like us — as Us Weekly often notes. They, too, can get multiple sclerosis. The media attention that follows can help promote understanding, empathy, solidarity, and donations — but it can also lead to unnecessary fear. A few years ago, my teenage son remarked, “Having MS is all the rage.” Indeed, it did seem that a slew of celebrities had recently come forward stating that they had multiple sclerosis.
How the Invisible Symptoms of MS Amplify My Loneliness
It’s easy to feel misunderstood or left out when your multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms aren’t relatable — or even visible — to others. I’m pretty lucky. I have support all around me: a husband, son, parents, friends. Living with the invisible effects of an illness like MS can be challenging, and if I’m having a hard day and need to vent or cry, I have plenty of people in my world who will be there for me. I’m grateful for this. And yet, the truth is inescapable. MS can be an incredibly lonely disease.
What It Is and Why It Happens
People with multiple sclerosis may develop ‘silent progression,’ in which worsening symptoms sneak up slowly and evade common neurological testing. My neurologist smiles as she reviews my latest MRI scans. No new lesions, no active demyelination showing a relapse of my multiple sclerosis (MS). She runs me through my biannual exam and notes that I’m even showing functional improvement in some areas since my last exam. “The meds are working,” she says.
The Extra Child - Image Journal
WE DROPPED OUR LAST CHILD OFF at school and drove a thousand miles home. The school was a university. The buildings were massive, concealing the children’s futures within thick, enduring walls of brick and concrete. The parents filled the student dorms with objects: blankets, shoe racks, handheld vacuums, tiny refrigerators, coffee makers, as though propelled by memories of their own sorrowful need. They wanted to prepare their children; they did not want the children to want anything.
I'm Obsessed with Death
Supposedly, people don't talk about death enough in the United States. It's a topic we fear so intensely that we deny its inevitability. We pretend we are immune. This is what I read anyway. I, on the other hand, gravitate to discussions about death like a vulture to a corpse. I truly can't get enough. The first death I obsessed about was in 1976, when I was eight. Buffy from Family Affair died. And not only did she die, she died from a drug overdose.
Falsled Kro drømmer grønt: Planer om kæmpe køkkenhave og lokalt lammehold
Otte nyindkøbte hektar jord ned mod vandet skal bruges, så det kendte spisested bliver mere selvforsynende og bæredygtigt Annonce
Bum! Stor kartoffel-virksomhed nærmer sig den halve milliard: Alligevel er resultatet dårligere end forventet
Der bliver lavet rigtig mange penge hos kartoffel-virksomheden Danespo i Give, selvom forbrugerne til en vis grad er stoppet med at købe økologiske kartofler. Annonce
38-årig mand i kritisk tilstand efter cykelstyrt
En 38-årig mand fra Odense-området er svært tilskadekommen, efter han natten til søndag væltede på cykel. Arkivfoto: Kim Haugaard/Jysk Fynske Medier Rikke Laugesen rilau@jfm.dk
33-årig kvinde anholdt i nattelivet: Rev betjent i hestehale
En 33-årig kvinde fra Odense-området overfaldt natten til søndag cirka klokken 02.30 en politibetjent. Arkivfoto: Mads Dalegaard Rikke Laugesen rilau@jfm.dk
5000 kroner ekstra om året rykker ikke ved naboers kamp mod nye vindmøller: - Det dur overhovedet ikke
Naboer til vindmøller på Langeland opfordrer til, at man tager en tænkepause på kommunen. Der er ikke behov for flere vindmøller nu, og et nyt udspil fra regeringen om øget kompensation ændrer intet, lyder det. Annonce
29-årig 'ville gerne i kontakt' med genboens døtre - nu er han dømt for at true dem på livet: - Det var en misforståelse
En 29-årig mand forsøgte at få kontakt til genboens døtre. Ifølge hans forklaring i retten endte en misforståelse dog med, at han fremsatte dødstrusler mod de to unge kvinder. Nu er der faldet dom i sagen. Annonce
Am I a Writer or a Salesman?
I read with interest a recent Professor of Medium post, explaining the importance of crafting a captivating title for Medium articles. It is the title, after all, that causes readers to stop and click, he explains. A boring title will not even register as readers scroll through the dozens of articles each day. A creative title, on the other hand, may very well lure browsers inside - one quick tap and they can learn more.
My Love of Eye Drops
Evidently, dry eyes are a common problem among those of a certain age. This was news to me until recently, but alas, now at nighttime, as I lay me down to sleep, I find that my eyeballs have turned into desert-like spheres screaming for water or anything - ANYTHING !- to drink. My eyelids similarly cry out, feeling the scrape of sandpaper with each blink. The first night I noticed this phenomenon, I fumbled through my medicine cabinet in search of eye drops.
On My Deathbed, I Will Be Wishing I Had Worked More
I studied like crazy in high school. I had to. I wanted to keep up with my super-smart peers, I wanted to do well, and I wanted to get into a "good" college. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do beyond those things, but I knew, at least, where I wanted to start. And I succeeded. I was admitted into a top university, and I earned a bachelor's degree cum laude. When I graduated, I took a mediocre job, which quickly morphed into an exciting one.
An African Jungle, a Family of Chimps, and MS
At the very last minute, I swapped out my new walking sneakers for my older scruffy ones. The travel agent said to leave white clothing at home - white doesn't blend in well in nature and animals can easily spot it - and I feared that my newer shoes were too bright. We'd planned this trip to Africa for five years and were crazy with anticipation. Number one on my wish list was the apes; number one on my husband's was the birds.
Mourning Cricket
We said goodbye to Cricket just about four months ago. It was excruciating, as all good dog deaths are. I immediately knew we'd get another dog one day. Cricket had brought indescribable love into our home and been such an integral part of our family for more than 13 years. Everything was so quiet without her. We decided we'd begin searching for a new dog in the Fall, after we returned from our long-planned vacation and after my heart had time to heal.
Another One Bites the Dust: A Life with MS
The latest casualty is doing my own nails. It was inevitable of course. MS has stripped most of the sensation from my fingertips, so holding that tiny nail polish wand is not easy for me. Still, spring had sprung, and my nails were nude. I grabbed an emery board and ElePhantastic Pink and set up shop on the table out back. But too many times, the brush slipped through my fingers and tumbled downward. Too many times, ElePhantastic Pink splattered onto the flagstone slates below.
What makes us healthy?
Redefining "health" led to a surprising new perspective about my illness "Are you generally healthy?" The question stopped me cold as I filled out the new patient form. Previous answers had come to me effortlessly. Name, address, insurance information. Emergency contact. Did I have, or had I ever had, cancer, diabetes, stroke? No, no, no. And then the seemingly philosophical: "Are you generally healthy?" I had no idea how to respond.
Orange County Climate Action Plans Fall Short
Karen Bender and Patricia Larsen are Co-Chairs of the Climate Change Committee of the League of Women Voters of North Orange County Some north Orange County cities have created plans to combat climate change on a local level in recent years. Not surprisingly, these plans vary immensely.
Shortage of Information Security Professionals
In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in high-profile data breaches. As data breaches at corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies continue to grow, so does the need for InfoSec professionals. Furthermore, hackers keep getting smarter and their attacks keep getting more sophisticated. The high demand leads to an ongoing shortage of information security professionals.
Helicopter - Air/Light
The helicopter was large, thick and brutal in a military way, with a curved brown window so dark the pilot could not be seen. It was veering, with its deep guttural sound, toward our apartment building. I thought the helicopter would fly over the building, it would move on to its various duties, but it was coming closer to my apartment, yes, closer—and then the helicopter was hovering right beside my window, here.
What Will It Take to Hold Back the Sky?
What Will It Take to Hold Back the Sky? Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . The Pile The sky was lowering slowly, the great blue weight of it, and we could feel the air being squeezed out of the world.
Catapult Community | A Conversation with José Olivarez & Jessica Wilbanks | Community Craft Club
The full text of each piece discussed in the column is available online. This month’s interview focuses on José’s poem “My Family Never Finished Migrating, We Just Stopped,” which was featured in his award-winning debut collection Citizen Illegal, and later reprinted in the New York Times Magazine.
7 Novels About Being Broke
Andrew Ridker, author of “The Altruists,” recommends fiction on how debt ruins lives When I was young I used to play the Bank Game. I don’t remember the rules, only that whenever my parents took my sister and me to the house of certain family friends for dinner, us kids would run upstairs and form two competing banks. At some point during the game, the boys’ bank would become indebted to the girls’ bank, or vice versa, and a winner was declared.
This Cat by Karen E. Bender
It was not the cat’s fault. He was going to be the newest member of the family. We were at the PetSmart adoption carnival to buy a pet; we had that look of determined acquisition. A cloud of cat-rescue people came upon us, presenting their candidates. They started with their hopeless cases. The blind cats. The ones that had tested positive for feline leukemia. The one missing an ear from a fight. The children looked upset. They just wanted a nice cat. Nice? We have nice.
If You Have These Traits You Might Be a Writer
I asked the question. Most writers, at some point, ask the question. I marched toward the office of poet Thom Gunn, who taught the poetry workshop I took as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. I had submitted some poems for acceptance into his workshop, and I wanted to see if I was admitted into his class. I walked through the warm, starry air of Wheeler Hall to his office, where I stood, trembling, before a piece of paper taped to the door and saw my name on the list on the office door.
4 Spooky Short Stories Inspired by Haunting Images
In the spirit of Halloween, we asked writers to respond to photographs by Francesca Woodman, Gregory Crewdson and more, as part of our #TMicronovel series on Instagram. By Shelley Jackson, whose book “Riddance; or, the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children” was published this month. Marjorie had been preoccupied for some time with an activity the exact nature of which eluded her, though it took all her concentration. Then she looked up, if “up” was the word.
A New Short Story by Karen Bender – Electric Literature
My life unfolded in ways that surprised me and did not. I stopped playing cello in high school, but that time in the orchestra left an echo — this fierce gleam of desire. The desire took various forms. It fell like a pale net over anything I could capture. It fell over people.
The Elevator
Photo by Iulian Ursu via Flickr. Licensed under CC. She was riding the elevator to her first job, as an assistant at a music magazine; the world fell away as she rose to the fifteenth floor. She was twenty years old. During the few months she had worked in this office, she had learned how to move names from column A to column B for event invites, make a collated set of Xerox copies, carry a cardboard box full of six different coffee orders.
The New Order
KAREN E. BENDER is the author of Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction, short-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and long-listed for the Story Prize. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. She is the Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.
Epic sail shows Ocean City woman that she can take on Parkinson’s and live on her own terms
Editor’s note: Karen Bender retired as an English teacher at Ocean City High School in 2012, more than a decade after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, after slightly less than 40 years teaching. She is married to Henry Bender, also a retired teacher. As Karen Oliphant, she served on the Ocean City Council, the second woman ever to be elected to the city’s governing body.Back in 1996 I was introduced to sailing by my husband, Henry.
Anything for Money
Will he use the show to seek out those who will offer up their lives in exchange for money? Will his granddaughter’s frailty lead him to realize that there are some things—essential, transcendent things—that are, horrifyingly, priceless? The line between want and need then becomes as thin as the membrane between life and death, and what is so moving about these characters is how they navigate that torturous, fragile space.
Anything for Money
Anything for Money Karen E Bender Author of the story collection Refund, a Finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, and the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Share article If you enjoy reading Electric Literature, join our mailing list! We’ll send you the best of EL each week, and you’ll be the first to know about upcoming submissions periods and virtual events. by Karen E.
NBA-Finalist Karen E. Bender’s Favorite Short Stories
When I read these stories, I really wish I had written them. I am having conversations with these stories, in different ways. I read for strangeness—the sense that the world is presented in a way that is not how you have been told it is, but that you know, instinctively, it can be. I read for the beauty of the language and sentences, and a sense of vision and real feeling. All of these stories have these elements. Go read them, now.
Taiwan’s Incredible Edible Revolution
Rei-ying Fang is driving to Maoli, the countryside beyond the industrial haze of Taichung City, Taiwan. A farmer, Hong Xiang, has for the last dozen years worked with Taiwan’s largest consumer food co-op, the Homemakers Union Consumer Co-op, supplying it with organic radishes, sweet potatoes and watermelon. Xiang has injured her hand and needs help gathering the daikon radishes in her field.
The Emotional Power of Verbs
Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing. The characters in my students’ stories were not quite jumping off the page. The characters were clear and beautifully described, but sometimes I felt a bit impatient reading them. The problem was not with the descriptions — my students skillfully created characters with nouns and adjectives, constructing the characters and their world so that I knew them. The issue was that everything seemed to be still and perfect as a photograph.
Spin the Globe: Karen E. Bender Glamps, Toasts Newlyweds in Shannon, Ireland
So I would be going to an Irish wedding. First, though, there was a castle. Soon after landing at Shannon, in central Ireland, I strolled through Bunratty Castle. Right across the street from my hotel, it was one of those citadels with gray, reptilian, stone skin that just sit by the road in Ireland. Restored to the way it would have looked in the 15th century, Bunratty was full of tapestries, grand vaulted ceilings, and mounted antlers with the wingspans of pterodactyls.
The Accidental Writer (Published 2013)
I became a writer when I was hit on the head with a rock. It was 1969, I was 6 years old and my mother had dropped me off at a friend’s birthday party. It was June, and I remember the backyard of that house, in Mandeville Canyon, the hot California sun on my hair, the screams of the children as they ran around the yard.
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