Thomas Beller

Background

He is the son of documentary filmmaker Hava Kohav Beller.

Education

After attending Saint Ann"s in Brooklyn, New York, he received his Bachelor from Vassar College, and his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University Writing Program. While still studying for his Master of Fine Arts, The New Yorker published Beller"s short story "A Different Kind of Imperfection", which was chosen for the Best American Short Stories volume of 1992.

Career

Born and raised in New York, Beller has remained a resident of his native city, which often features in his stories. Since, his work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, ELLE, Spin, Vogue, Slate, and The Village Voice. He spent a year as a staff writer at The New Yorker, and later worked for The Cambodia Daily newspaper, where he remains a contributing editors

He is a contributing editor to Travel+Leisure Magazine.

Beller has penned four volumes. The first, Seduction Theory, a collection of short stories, was published in 1995.

The Sleep-Over Artist, Beller"s first novel, was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2000, and a New York Times Notable Book. His third book, How to Be a Manitoba: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood, is a series of autobiographical essays.

His fourth book is a biography, Salinger: The Escape Artist.

He co-founded the tri-annual literary magazine Open City in 1990, which added a book division in 1999. Today, Beller and Joanna Yas, are the editors of the magazine and press, which publishes many new and young writers. He has also edited three anthologies: With Love and Squalor: 14 Writers Respond to the Work of Salinger, Before and After: Stories From New York, and Personals: Dreams and Nightmares From the Lives of Twenty Young Writers.

Thomas Beller is also the creator of the literary website Mr.

Beller"s Neighborhood, a collection of essays, reportage, and vignettes by various authors, including Beller himself. All of the pieces are set in or about Beller"s native New York City.

The collection has been growing since 2000. The location of each story is marked on a map.

In 2002, the site was nominated for a Webby Award in the Print and Zine category and published a book: Before and After: Stories from New York, which pivots around the September 11 attacks.

In 2009, Beller edited a second Mr. Beller"s Neighborhood anthology, Lost and Foundation: Stories from New New York

Works

• book

  • The Sleep-over Artist

    (The Sleep-Over Artist: Fiction The Sleep-Over Artist: Fic...)

  • How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood

    ( From strip clubs to the Academy Awards to the basketbal...)

  • The Sleep-Over Artist: Fiction

    ( "In the same way Salinger carved out the niche of male ...)

  • Seduction Theory: Stories

    ( "A touching collection of stories about love in the cit...)

  • The Escape Artist J.D. Salinger (Hardback) - Common

    (New)

  • J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist (Icons)

    ( J.D. Salinger published his first story in The New York...)

  • Seduction Theory, 1st, First Edition
  • The Sleep-Over Artist: Fiction by Thomas Beller (2001-05-17)
  • How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood by Thomas Beller (2005-08-17)