Bennett Sims is an American fiction writer with three book publications, the novel ''A Questionable Shape'' (2013) and the

short story collections A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

''White Dialogues'' and ''Other Minds and Other Stories''. He is an assistant professor at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

Early life and education

Sims was born and raised in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counties i ...

. During high school, he spent three summers in the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts' boarding program, where he wrote fiction. He graduated from Pomona College in 2008, where he was mentored by David Foster Wallace. He later graduated from the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow, and he served as a Provost's Postgraduate Visiting Writer at the

from 2012-2013.

Career

Sims's debut novel, ''A Questionable Shape'', was published by

Two Dollar Radio Two Dollar Radio is an independent family-run publisher based in Columbus, Ohio. The company was founded in 2005 by husband-and-wife team Eric Obenauf and Eliza Jane Wood-Obenauf, with Brian Obenauf. The press specializes in literary fiction. In ...

on May 1, 2013. It won the 2014 Bard Fiction Prize, which included a $30,000 cash prize and a semester-long writer-in-residence appointment at Bard College. Reviews often referred to the book as a novel with

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...

s that is not a zombie novel, set in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and referring opaquely to the aftermath of

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

. It received generally positive reviews from media outlets including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', '' Electric Literature'', ''

Los Angeles Review of Books The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...

'', and ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

.'' In 2017, Sims published his second book, a short story collection called ''White Dialogues'', with

on September 12, 2017. It received positive reviews from ''

'', ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'', and '' Bookforum.'' After the publication of the book, Sims was a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2018-2019, where he worked on his third book, a novel. His stories have been published in ''

The Iowa Review ''The Iowa Review'' is an American literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. History and profile Founded in 1970, ''Iowa Review'' is issued three times a year, during the months of April, August, and December. Origin ...

'', ''Story'', '' Conjunctions'', ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...

'', and the

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

Anthology. ''Other Minds and Other Stories'' was named a finalist for

The Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

. He currently teaches undergraduate fiction courses at the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sims, Bennett Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Pomona College alumni American male short story writers 21st-century American novelists University of Iowa faculty 21st-century American male writers American horror writers Novelists from Louisiana Writers from Iowa City, Iowa Writers from Baton Rouge, Louisiana Novelists from Iowa