Beth Bosworth has the knack for making you fall in love with ornery characters—bookworms, oddballs, prickly and eccentric folks. Never far from a sense of life’s tragedy and loss, she nevertheless observes the world with a keen and earnest intelligence that by its very alertness, its very engagement, contains its own hard-edged joy. Her new novel, Tunneling, is about a Kafka-obsessed, asthmatic seventh-grader in 1960s Teaneck, New Jersey, tormented by the problems of teen-hood (parents, siblings, air pollution, racial tension) by day, who by night escapes into the world of S-man, a blue-haired superhero who spirits her back in time to visit troubled writers and battle evil. She visits Chinua Achebe, Oscar Wilde, Aquaman, and others. Sounds like a goofy and entertaining ride, right? But Bosworth also has the literary writer’s touch that makes her work more urgent—and sadder—than pure fantasy.
Some of Bosworth’s work is featured in Image issue 37.
Purchase Bosworth’s book, Tunneling, here.
Biography
Beth Bosworth received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her M.A. in English and Fiction Writing is also from NYU. Prior to both of those degrees, however, Bosworth received a degree in Lettres Modernes from the Universite de Paris in Paris, France. She is currently the editor of The Saint Ann’s Review: A Journal of Contemporary Arts and Letters and teaches at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, the New School for Social Research, and NYC Technical College. Her publications include a novel, Tunneling; a collection of short stories, A Burden of Earth; and several short stories that have been published in journals such as Bridge Magazine, IMAGE, The Manhattan Review, Hanging Loose, and The Forward. In 1995 and 2000, Bosworth received Yaddo Fellowships.
Current Projects
August 2004
My current projects include a novel just banished to my agent’s desk and a new novel hovering above mine. The former is a post-9/11 tragicomedy. (If tragedy releases you through catharsis, and comedy through laughter, a good tragicomedy should leave you feeling like you ate too much of that cauliflower au gratin.) I also edit The Saint Ann’s Review (click here to view) and continue to teach wonderful young writers and readers at Saint Ann’s School. I’m remarried and live in Brooklyn with my family.