Rebecca Bengal Rebeccabengal.net

EDUCATION

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, University of Texas at Austin. James A. Michener Fellow. Thesis in Fiction; second genre in Screenwriting; minor in Photography. Worked with Joy Williams, Denis Johnson, and James Kelman. AWP Intro Journals finalist, nominated by Joy Williams.

Editorial Fellow, DoubleTake magazine and The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

Bachelor of Arts in English, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Recipient of North Carolina Writers Workshop Scholarship, English Department Creative Writing Award, and two-time Editorial Assistantship, Greensboro Review. Recipient of Exchange Study Scholarship in Art and East European Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland.

FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES, AWARDS

2020: Mina Hohenberg Darden Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 2019: New York Press Club Award, for a longform story set in City Island, New York, published by Curbed/Vox, titled Exploring the Nantucket of the Bronx 2018: Artist fellow, Testsite/Fluent~Collaborative, for collaborative monthlong exhibition with artist Dave Bryant, featuring excerpts from Moonshine Runners Road; Austin, Texas 2014: Fellow, MacDowell Colony and recipient of a Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation scholarship; Petersborough, New Hampshire 2013: Writing fellow, Djerassi Resident Artist Program; Woodside, California 2009: Associate Artist with Master Artist Antonya Nelson, Atlantic Center for the Arts; New Smyrna Beach, Florida 2007: Advanced Fiction Workshop, 92nd Street Y, with Donald Antrim; New York City 2006: Full Fellowship/Residency, Caldera; Sisters, Oregon 2005: Full Fellowship/Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Amherst, Virginia 2004: Associate Artist with Master Artist George Garrett, Atlantic Center for the Arts;

New Smyrna Beach, Florida 2003: Tin House Fellow in Fiction, Summer Literary Seminars; St. Petersburg, Russia

SELECTED SHORT FICTION AND CREATIVE NONFICTION

2020 “The Jeremys,” a short story accompanying Girl Pictures, a monograph by Justine Kurland, Spring, Aperture “Knit Club,” short fiction for a book of photographs by Carolyn Drake, to be published as a monograph by TBW Books, San Francisco, Fall Writer, Little Brown Mushroom Newsletter, published by photographer Alec Soth. Contribute a column titled “Cosmic Fishing” 2018 “In the Place Where Prince Lived,” collaboration with Alec Soth, Vogue “Everybody Has Tones: On David Byrne’s True Stories,” Criterion Collection 2016 “Rewriting Love Underneath the Hollywood Sign,” Vogue 2015 “Searching for Sam Shepard Aboard the Sunset Limited,” Vogue 2017 “Repo Man: Glen Campbell and Charles Portis’s Norwood,” The Paris Review “To Burn Again: On the Narrative of Fire,” Affidavit 2018 “Reimagining Female Identity in a Ukrainian Orphanage” (essay in response to Carolyn Drake’s Internat photographs), The Paris Review 2015 “Slowly, and With Much Expression,” (personal narrative/hybrid essay/interview on Alec Soth, Walker Evans, DoubleTake Magazine, and visual storytelling), Guernica 2014 “A Gun and a Guitar,” Paris Review 2009 “Captioning for the Blind,” Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 “Captioning for the Blind,” artist’s book with Virginia Yount, Monofonus Press 2008 “Mash Turning,” Southwest Review, nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Ben Fountain and for Best New American Voices by Joy Williams 2004 “Lake Fun,” The Believer 2003 Flytrap, Krening.com 2002 “Catching On,” Prism: International 1998 “Shots,” O.Henry Festival Review 1994 “Corpus Delicti,” Greensboro Review, nominated for the Pushcart Prize

SELECTED WRITING ON WRITING

2018 “But I Don’t Ever Lie (on Lucia Berlin),” The Paris Review “Sam Shepard’s Final Book and Patti Smith’s Tribute,” Vogue “The Tears of Denis Johnson (a collective tribute),” Longreads

“Beautiful Country, Burn Again: Joan Didion,” Vogue 2017 “Reading Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book,” Vogue “Nobel Prize Winner Svetlana Alexievich in New York,” Vogue “Where James Baldwin Left Off: A New Book Reignites Conversations About Race,” Vogue 2014 “A Mysterious and Unparalleled Vision: Joy Williams’ New and Collected Stories,” Vogue 2013 “Nevada Gothic: On Claire Vaye Watkins’ Battleborn,” NewYorker.com

SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART WRITING

2020/2021 “And the Clock Waits So Patiently,” essay forthcoming in But Still It Turns, to be published by Mack 2020 “Three Lives” (Agnès Varda box set, Criterion Collection) “Film Studies: Nan Goldin,” Aperture (Summer) “On Mary Ellen Mark’s The Book of Everything,” Aperture (Winter) “Feature essay on Horace Poolaw and Richard Throssel,” Aperture (Fall) “Andres Gonzalez’s American Origami,” The Nation “Essay on Stephen Shore,” IMA magazine 2019 “Desire Lines: Reframing the Road Trip Narrative in Alec Soth’s Photographs,” IMA “Preston Gannaway,” Contact Sheet annual “April Dawn Alison,” Bookforum 2018 “Santa Barbara: Diana Markosian’s Russian-American Soap Opera,” Aperture (Family issue) 2017 “The San Quentin Photographs That Led to Ear Hustle,” Aperture (Prison issue) “An Afternoon with William Eggleston, Who Changed the Way We See the World,” Vogue “Chauncey Hare’s Protest,” Aperture 2016 “Outlaw’s Territory: on Danny Lyons’ Bikeriders,” Guernica Annual 2018 “Common Thread: Profile of Jordan Nassar,” WSJ magazine 2017 “The Cultish Allure of the Children's Book "The Lonely Doll," The New Yorker/Page- Turner 2016 “Picturing New York’s Forgotten Borough: A Visit to Staten Island with Photographer Christine Osinski,” Vogue “The Strange, Accidental Allure of Craigslist Mirrors,” Vogue 2018 “Through the Looking Glass: Profile of Ming Smith,” Cultured, photographed by Katsu Naito

“On Dawoud Bey’s Seeing Deeply,” Bookforum “Saving Grace: Garry Winogrand's Art of the Ephemeral Moment,” Bookforum “Rose Marie Cromwell’s El Libro Supremo de la Suerte,” Bookforum “Everything That Rises,” catalogue essay for Robert Knight's "Transnational" exhibition “The Threat of Being Seen: Alex Prager,” Aperture “Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz on Gordon Parks,” Cultured, photographed by Jamel Shabazz) 2017 “A Young Japanese Photographer's View of Harlem in the Nineties,” The New Yorker/Photo Booth “Alec Soth's Mississippi Dreamers in a Nightmare America,” Paris Review “On Alessandra Sanguinetti's Photographs of France,” Vogue “Sadie Barnette Turned Her Black Panther Father’s FBI File Into Art,” Vogue “Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places Revisited by a New Generation,” Vogue 2016 “Buck Ellison,” Aperture "Elements of Style" issue “Come for the Photos, Stay for the Films: Danny Lyon at the Whitney,” Vogue “Reframing the Legacy of Walker Evans, in a New Exhibition,” Vogue “A New Documentary About Robert Frank Goes Beyond The Americans,” Vogue “Remembering Malick Sidibé, Who Captured the Look of a Changing West Africa,” Vogue “A New Francesca Woodman Photo Book Demands a Closer Look,” Vogue 2015 “Picturing the American South: The Year's Best Photo Books,” Vogue “A Conversation with Nan Goldin on the 30th Anniversary of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency,” Vogue “The Family Acid’s 1970s Photographs of Big Sur,” Vogue “A Trove of Vintage Countercultural Photographs Sees the Light of Day,” T/The New York Times “Spot's Photos of the 1980s Southern California Skate-Punk Scene,” T/The New York Times “Justine Kurland’s Vivid, Haunting Photographs of Men and Cars,” T/The New York Times “After Sally Mann’s Memoir, a New Look at Her Most Famous Photographs,” Vogue “Picturing Paris, Texas: A New Volume Collects Wim Wenders’s Photographs of the Town Behind the Film,” Vogue “The Grand Ole Opry: Henry Horenstein on His Photographs of ’70s Nashville, Vogue

“Mary Ellen Mark Has Died at 75: A Retrospective of the Photographer’s Pictures,” Vogue “Julian Wasser’s Photographs of the California Dream, and Its Underbelly,” The New York Times/T “Where in the World Do Agnes Martin’s Visionary Paintings Belong?,” Vogue 2013 “Object Lessons: Christian Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood,” The Paris Review 2008 “Southern Gothic: William Eggleston in Memphis, on the Eve of His Whitney Retrospective,” New York Magazine

SELECTED ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING

2019 “The Seas Are Rising and So Are They,” in collaboration with photographer Joel Sternfeld, Vogue “This Side of Paradise,” in collaboration with photographer Justine Kurland, Vogue 2018 “Return to Standing Rock,” collaboration with photographer Mitch Epstein, Vogue “What Lies Beneath Lake Oahe,” Lapham’s Quarterly 2017 “The Fire This Time,” collaboration with Nich McElroy, Vogue “The Water Protectors: American Women,” (collaboration with Alessandra Sanguinetti), Vogue 2016 “Standing Rock Rising,” (collaboration with Alessandra Sanguinetti), Vogue * Interviewed on MSNBC Live for writing this story “What Amy Goodman’s Arrest Warrant Means for the Dakota Access Pipeline and Free Speech,” Vogue and republished by Democracy Now!

SELECTED DOCUMENTARY NONFICTION

2019 “Ballad of a Doomed Troubadour: On Jim Sullivan,” The New York Times “Signs of Change,” essay on familial Deafness and the 125th anniversary of the North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morganton, North Carolina; Our State 2018 “New York City, Block by Block: a series of stories set in City Island, Greenwich Village, Staten Island, Louis Armstrong’s house, and Clinton Hill,” in collaboration with Chris Mottalini for Curbed. The City Island story received a 2019 NY Press Club Award. 2011 “Pittsburgh Forges Ahead, story and photographs, on photographer W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh,” The Washington Post Magazine 2010 “WPA Guide to Florida, story and photos on Zora Neale Hurston’s Florida,” The

Washington Post Magazine; interviewed for this story on NPR’s Tell Me More 2007 “Renaissance Man,” cover story, The Washington Post Magazine “Spin Control,” cover story, The Washington Post Magazine 2006 “Russian Roulette,” narrative, Topic “Soul Searching,” The Washington Post Magazine 2001 “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” story and photographs on the Land of Oz park in western North Carolina, Oxford American

SELECTED MUSIC ESSAYS

2019 “Roky Erickson’s Never Say Goodbye,” Pitchfork (expanded version of this essay to be published in a forthcoming reissue of the album by Light in the Attic Records) “The Blue, Wandering Life of Townes Van Zandt,” The Guardian “Sonic Youth’s Sister,” Pitchfork 2018 “That Chord!” (on Etta Baker, North Carolina music issue), Oxford American 2017 “Willie Nelson’s Red-Headed Stranger,” Pitchfork “Let’s Stand for the Mountains! A Gathering of Native North America Musicians,” The Guardian “Protest Soul: Music for Healing a Broken World,” Pitchfork Review 2016 “The Year the Music Died,” Vogue “Why Sun Ra Came Down to Earth,” Pitchfork Review

SELECTED PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

2020 “The Gospel of Brother Theotis Taylor,” The Guardian 2019 “A Quiet Revolution in Color,” Ursula “The Deadpan World of Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Wall Street Journal Magazine “The Trap House-Busting Vigilante of Pine Ridge Reservation,” in collaboration with Taliesin Gilkes-Bower, Topic 2018 “Willie Nelson,” The Guardian “Lonnie Holley,” The Guardian “William Ferris on Capturing the Voices of Mississippi,” The Guardian “The Last Poets,” The Guardian “Hailu Mergia,” The Guardian “Janelle Monaé,” The Guardian 2015 “Gay Talese Has a Cold,” Vogue

2014 “Behind the Scenes of Another Night: Choreographer Kyle Abraham,” Vogue 2006 “On Cartooning: Interviews with Daniel Clowes, Phoebe Gloeckner, Chris Ware, Jason Lutes, Seth,” POV/American Documentary

TEACHING

2020 Visiting Professor, MFA Creative Writing Program, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. Design and teach a reading and writing course in fiction and nonfiction, and a seminar in literary editing and publishing.

2018 Visiting Writer, UNC Greensboro MFA Fiction Workshop, Greensboro, NC

2010–2011 Fiction Instructor, Gotham Writers Workshop, New York

2004 Creative Writing Instructor, Youth Voices in Ink, Austin, Texas

2000 Workshop Leader, Literacy Through Photography, Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, North Carolina

EDITORIAL WORK

2016–present Freelance Writer, narrative nonfiction, short fiction, cultural, literary and environmental journalism. Contribute frequently to Aperture, The Paris Review, The Guardian, Bookforum, T, Pitchfork, Criterion Collection and elsewhere. Collaborate with numerous artists and photographers.

2010–2016 Contributing Editor, Vogue. Edited features, provided visual direction, wrote and edited stories on culture, politics, and fashion. Lead editor for fashion month coverage.

2004–2011 Editor, and later, Contributing Editor, American Short Fiction. Directed the relaunch of the magazine, including all editorial and art direction. Edited stories that were widely anthologized. Curated all covers and art essays.

2005-2011 Freelance Copy Editor, PEN America, BOMB, Interview, The Onion (weekly issues, books, and websites), Distributed Art Publishers; Artforum, Rolling Stone, among others.

2005–2009 Senior Contributing Editor, Topic magazine. Researched, edited, and wrote stories for this quarterly of narrative nonfiction and photography.

2002–2004 Editorial Assistant, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards Anthology. Working with Series Editor Laura Furman, read and reviewed of hundreds of short stories published in North American and Canadian literary journals.

1998–1999 Editorial Assistant, DoubleTake magazine. Assistant to editor David Rowell, evaluating fiction and nonfiction submissions and editing stories in progress.

SELECTED READINGS, PERFORMANCES, AND EXHIBITIONS

2020 The Jeremys short fiction reading with Justine Kurland, virtual/North Carolina

2019 Permissionless Reading of the Work of David Berman, Met Breuer, New York

2018 Reading and exhibition, Testsite, Austin, Texas

Short fiction reading, Sunview Luncheonette series, Brooklyn

Conversation with photographer Paul Graham, AIPAD fair, New York

2017 Conversation with artist Alec Soth, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

Short fiction reading, Sunview Luncheonette series, Brooklyn

2015 The Reviewers, Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn

2014 Conversation with writer Joy Williams, McNally Jackson Books, New York Multiple readings at the MacDowell Colony, including a solo reading for the Board of Directors during Medal Day Weekend

2008 Monofonus Press Fiction Reading, Moose Lodge, Austin, Texas

2007 Speaker, Periodically Speaking/Council of Literary Magazines and Small Presses at New York Public Library, New York

1999 Photography exhibition, “Youth Culture” group show with Lauren Greenfield, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

1999: Photography exhibition, "Twelve Pictures," Kress Space, Greensboro, North Carolina