My Secret Mentor: Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender is not your average fiction writer. Often described as "surreal" or "bizarre," Bender's stories manage to captivate and disturb readers all at once. She is able to take the impossible to imagine and not only present the ideas in easy to understand and picture ways, but connect to the readers on a very personal level. Her use of metaphors and imagery make her writing flow in a calm yet effective manner.

Her short stories and novels all focus on plots that deal with the fantastical: a girl that can taste emotions, a boy with an iron for a head who is born into a family of pumpkin heads, and a boy with keys for fingers, to name a few.

I first read her novel "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" a few years ago, and I was instantly hooked not only on the weird and addicting plot, but also on Bender's beautifully written prose. She is able to describe emotions and human nature in clear and deeply detailed ways.

"I'd stopped waving to passengers in cars by then- I'd grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives- so I sat and watched and rode and thought, and as soon as the bus doors opened, we all rolled out the door and split apart like billiard balls,” (Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake).

Her down-to-earth yet fantastical prose is a versatile and intriguing model that every writer can learn from.

If you'd like to learn more about Aimee, you can visit her website here.