In my work, I hope to to examine and untangle the complexities that govern our lives, the push/pull that traps us and that also can set us free.
Though I’ve had many jobs to support my writing work, writing has been a constant most of my life, beginning with plays for puppet shows and stories for school literary magazines.
I’ve worked as a journalist which cemented my love of character. Why do people do certain things? What keeps them from doing others? How do they find contentment amid messy lives? I am drawn to indomitable spirits.
My first novel The Glimpse focused on a rising star of a major art movement who sabotages her career when she chooses to have a child and how she struggles to reclaim her place.
My new novel Raised in Captivity is about a young boy who finds a unique voice to help him survive and ultimately escape a life of entrapment in Christian fundamentalism.
Agonizing love stories abound, how we relate to difficult people, often family, when we have no choice. Ultimately, I want to explore how people hold onto their dignity in seemingly impossible situations, sometimes with
humor, other times with great poignancy.
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LIS Bensley BIO
1977-1980: New York Times, junior editor and reporter, writing for many sections of the paper.
1980-1998: Freelance writer for The International Herald Tribune, ArtNews,
Elle Décor, Fine Cooking, The New Mexican, Inc, Medica magazines.
1983: Studied with Paul Bowles in Morocco.
1985: Author of The Women’s Cookbook
2005: Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, studied with Laurie Moore and Peter Ho Davies
2017: Freelance writer for Edible Monterey Bay
2019: Studied with Nancy Packer
2021: Published The Glimpse