Perle Besserman

Recipient of the Theodore Hoepfner Fiction Award and past writer-in-residence at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Artists’ Colony in Jerusalem, Pushcart Prize-nominee Perle Besserman was praised by Isaac Bashevis Singer for the “clarity and feeling for mystic lore” of her writing and by Publisher’s Weekly for its “wisdom [that] points to a universal practice of the heart.” In addition to her phd in comparative literature from Columbia University,  Besserman's autobiographical novel Pilgrimage was published by Houghton Mifflin, and her latest novels, Kabuki Boy, and Widow Zion, and two story collections, Marriage and Other Travesties of Love, and Yeshiva Girl, are available from Aqueous Books, Pinyon Publishing, and Homebound Publishing, respectively. Her short fiction has appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, Agni, Transatlantic Review, Nebraska Review, Southerly, North American Review, Bamboo Ridge, and in many other publications, both online and in print. Besserman’s most recent books of creative non-fiction are A New Zen for Women (Palgrave Macmillan) and Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers, coauthored with Manfred Steger (Wisdom Books). Besserman's forthcoming novel, "Fay's Men", (Running Wild Press) will be launched in Hawai'i at Coffee Talk Cafe and presented at the Hawai'i Book and Music Festival in 2024.