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91 ratings | 333 reviews | avg rating:4.51

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Ben Bush

Goodreads Author

Website

https://benbush.wordpress.com

Twitter

BenHBush

Member Since

March 2010

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Ben Bush is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a 2017-2018 Fulbright Fellow to Bulgaria, and an incoming Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California creative writing PhD program.

His fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Literary Review, Yeti, The Fanzine, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. His non-fiction and interviews have appeared in Salon, Bookforum, The Believer, Flavorwire, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poets & Writers, San Francisco Chronicle, Alternet, Bitch, and Conversations with William T. Vollmann (University of Mississippi Press).

He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Truman Capote Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Poets & Writers / the New York St ...more

45 posts
Ben Bush's Blog

Fiction“Introverts” The Iowa Review“Succumb Your Thumb” V...

Fiction

“Introverts” The Iowa Review

“Succumb Your Thumb” Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“The Overseer” The Literary Review

“> The Literary Review

“Seven Bedtimes for Seven Bonzos” Yeti

“Firewater & Firecrackers,” The Dogs (Karyn Lovegrove Gallery)

Interviews

Louis Chude-Sokei, The Organist (KCRW/McSweeney’s/The Believer.)

T. Geronimo Johnson, Los Angeles Review of Books

Joshua Cohen, Los Angeles Review of Boo

Combine Editions
Ben Bush’s books

Average rating: 3.79 · 670 ratings · 76 reviews · 4 distinct works

	Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? by Esther Pearl Watson, Mark Todd, Ben Bush (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.78 avg rating — 668 ratings — published 2006 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Awkward Two by Jeffrey Dinsmore (Goodreads Author), Clay McLeod Chapman (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kyle Jarrow (Editor) 4.45 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Iowa Review 47.2 (Fall 2017) by Harilaos Stecopoulos (Editor), T. Coraghessan Boyle (Goodreads Author), Margot Livesey (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Literary Review: Artificial Intelligence by The Literary Review, Minna Zallman Proctor (Editor), Okla Elliott it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2013 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

Ben is Currently Reading

Ben Bush is currently reading

The Sellout

by Paul Beatty

bookshelves: novel-workshop-fall-2026, currently-reading

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Nov 06, 2026 10:36AM

Ben Bush is currently reading

Freshwater

by Akwaeke Emezi (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Aug 14, 2026 02:45PM

Ben Bush is currently reading

The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your PhD into a Job

by Karen Kelsky

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jul 31, 2026 09:43AM

Ben’s Recent Updates

Ben Bush started reading The Sellout by Paul Beatty	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nov 06, 2026 10:36AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Sellout by Paul Beatty. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Sellout by Paul Beatty <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ben Bush and 2 other people liked Aneesa's review of Redwall (Redwall, #1): "Predictable AND exciting"
Nov 05, 2026 09:41PM · see review
Ben Bush finished reading The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nov 05, 2026 08:24AM · like
Ben Bush liked Ana’s status update Ana wants to read An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
Nov 04, 2026 09:50PM
Ben Bush and 2 other people liked Ana’s status update Ana wants to read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Nov 04, 2026 09:50PM · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ben Bush started reading The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 31, 2026 10:37AM · like
Ben Bush has read Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions by Maggie Nelson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I read the chapters out of order, which I liked. I read this while preparing a talk on the connections between autofiction and poetry. I found the Eileen Myles chapter most helpful, fun, invigorating. Bernadette Mayer also seems like a real character ...more
Oct 30, 2026 09:57AM · 2 likes · like · see review
Ben Bush wants to read Hard and Glad by Amelia Ada	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 25, 2026 09:56AM · like
Ben Bush has read Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition by Walt Whitman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Pretty good! "Song of Myself" is the main event, but I enjoyed the context of the other pieces. The whole thing is very "I am America (in all its contradictions)." It made me think about 1855. ...more
Oct 13, 2026 09:41AM · 1 like · like · see review
Ben Bush wants to read Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative by Judith Butler	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 13, 2026 08:03AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Excitable Speech by Judith Butler. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Excitable Speech by Judith Butler <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

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Ben’s Quotes

“Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, is now one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as aesthetic pleasure of the first order.”
― Walter Benjamin

11 likes

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”
― Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

tags: anarchy, freedom, inspirational, lateral-thinking, philosophy, rationalism

2569 likes