Ben Greenman

Ben Greenman (born 1969) is an American writer and magazine editor.

Greenman was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Miami, Florida. He attended Miami Palmetto High School and then Yale University where he worked on the Yale Herald. After Yale, he worked as a film critic at New Times newspaper in Miami and then moved to New York City to work as a freelance writer and editor. His journalism has appeared in such magazines as "Rolling Stone", "Mother Jones", "Time Out New York", and other publications. In 2000, he joined the staff of the "The New Yorker" magazine, where he edits the Goings On About Town Section.

Greenman's first book of fiction, "Superbad", was published by McSweeneys Press in 2001. The book is a collection of stories, most humorous, dealing with such issues as creativity, originality, and pop culture while also experimenting with fictional forms. Superworse, published by SoftSkull Press in 2004, reworked some of the material from Superbad but added a more novelistic structure to the book. His short fiction has appeared in such publications as "Zoetrope All Story", the "Paris Review", and "Opium" Magazine. His third book, titled "A Circle Is A Balloon and Compass Both", was published in the spring of 2007.

In addition to his books, Greenman has penned a series of musicals that reflect on current-events happenings of the day (one recent example, "If I Did It! The Musical", responds to the news that O.J. Simpson planned to publish a book speculating on the murder of his ex-wife Nicole, and others retell the stories of the racehorse Barbaro, the feud between Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell, and the troubles surrounding Britney Spears). He has also invented the Conceptual Art Registry (in which he generates hundreds of ideas for conceptual art shows and then licenses them to young artists) and authored a series of epistolary stories that challenge the validity of commentary by the conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity. As a collaborative artist, he has worked with the band One Ring Zero on their author project, with the poet Mary Anfinsen, with the singer/songwriter Boyce Day, and others.

At the 2007 "The New Yorker" Festival, Greenman moderated a panel discussion on superheroes in popular culture with Tim Kring, the creator of the NBC series Heroes; the comic-book artist and writer Mike Mignola; the comic-book writer Grant Morrison; and the novelist Jonathan Lethem. He also conducted an onstage interview and performance with the indie rock trio Yo La Tengo.

At the 2007 edition of Litquake, the San Francisco literary festival, Greenman moderated an onstage event, the Literary Death Match, for Opium magazine; participants included the novelist Wesley Stace and the eventual winner, the author Daniel Handler.

Forthcoming 2008 from Hotel St. George press is a handmade and letterpressed edition of his book, Correspondences. The book, made by a letterpress studio called Blue Barnhouse, features an intricate book casing that unfolds to reveal three accordion books and a postcard which allows the reader to add to the story; the casing has part of the story on it as well. The first printing of the book is a limited edition of 200.

Greenman maintains his own website, [http://www.bengreenman.com/ www.bengreenman.com] , which formerly purported to be a community bank but does not any longer.

Books

--Please Step Back (2009)
--Correspondences (2008) -- Includes the Postcard Project.
--A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both (2007)
--Superworse (2004)
--Superbad (2001)

Anthologies

--Rock and Roll Cage Match
--Mirth of a Nation (2000)
--More Mirth of a Nation (2002)
--101 Damnations (2002)
--Politically Inspired (2003)
--May Contain Nuts (2005)
--The Encyclopedia of Exes: 26 Stories by Men of Love Gone Wrong (2005)
--Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans (2005)
--Stumbling and Raging: More Politically Inspired (2006)