by Writing Workshops Staff
8 months ago
We are thrilled to let you know that Dublin 2023 Workshop Alum Julie Benesh's new poetry collection, Initial Conditions (March, 2024), is now available to order though Saddle Road Press! Congratulations, Julie!
Praise:
Benesh's poetry creates a whole new species--her inner scientist dances with her inner romantic and both personas brim with lyric humanity. These poems start little revolutions with playful music and worldly insight. They are like brilliant dinner companions you hope to be seated beside--funny, original, and deeply true. -- Valentina Gnup, author of Sparrow Octaves, A Certain Piece of Sky, and Ruined Music
It's a delight to trace the voice of the speaker, which hopscotches from musing to marveling, nostalgic to nervy, always in service of clarity and the explication of the human heart. The poems in Initial Conditions find in our everyday experiences--first dates and yoga poses and city rats and ninth grade field trips and show tunes-our important truths. Julie Benesh redeems the world through clarity of vision and attention to sonic nuances. These are wonderful poems. --Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
Julie Benesh is the ultimate trickster. Her poetic sleight of hand is to feign nostalgia, then yank the magic carpet away. The results? A playful dance of death. A tour of the underworld. A life turned into mythology. Goth poems that sway like Siouxsie and the Banshees. Trust me, it's a wonderful ride. --Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine
Julie Benesh has a gift to introduce herself in her poetry filled with original imagery and metaphors of everyday events and memories. This collection of poems will delight readers with wit, paradox, and irony. We feel her presence in each poem, whether considering the complexities of our lives or some inevitable sorrows which confront us all. -Mark Fishbein, Chancellor of PGN-Poetry Global Network's Poetry Academy
About Juile:
Julie Benesh is author of the poetry collection INITIAL CONDITIONS, (out on Kindle or pre-order the paperback) and the chapbook ABOUT TIME, as well as a consultant, higher education leader and qualitative researcher. She holds a PhD in human and organizational systems, an MFA in fiction, and MS, MA and BA degrees in organizational behavior, organization development, and English literature. She is a frequent conference presenter for such organizations as International Leadership Association (ILA), Organization Development Network (ODN), Academy of Management, and Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), and is is a skilled learning experience designer and workshop leader and facilitator on such topics as cognitive diversity, design thinking, and gender in the workplace as well as developmental creative life writing for personal and professional development.
She has received an Illinois Arts Council Grant, a Pushcart nomination, and other recognition for her creative writing. She has taught creative writing for the Newberry Library in Chicago and for Dabble and has mentored dozens of PhD dissertation students.
Julie studied in our Personal Essay workshop with Diana Spechler as well as our Poetry workshop with Sarah Carson. Julie was also with us in Dublin, Ireland last April 2023 for our workshop there.
Learn more about Julie and her work here, and order a copy of Initial Conditions here.
