Kate S Bernheimer

Interests

Research

Fiction, fairy tales, mythology, art

Teaching

Contemporary fiction, translation, fabulism, contemporary fairy tales, folklore, mythology, poetry, literature, contemporary art, poetics, nonfiction, world literature

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Bernheimer, K. (2016). The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum. Greece: Livanis Publishing Organization S.A..
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  Translation and publication/distribution for hardcover sold to Livanis Publishing Organization S.A. (Greece) by Penguin Random House on behalf of Kate Bernheimer & Massie McQuilkin Literary Agents/NYC.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum. Japan: Babel Press.
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  Japanese translation & publication rights for hardcover sold by Penguin Random House on behalf of Kate Bernheimer/Massie McQuilken.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum. China: China Youth Book, Inc. (an imprint of China Youth Press).
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales (and Other Stories). Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press.
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  No one has done more for the contemporary fairy tale than Kate Bernheimer. In eight new stories, she leads us into a forest of everyday magic and misfits, where dinosaurs wear pajamas and talking dolls ruin your life. Elegant and brutal, Bernheimer’s lat- est collection locates the existential loveliness of ideas amidst the topsy-turvy logic of things. This collection renews classic stories with intelligent wonder. Like one of Bernheimer’s girls, whose hands of steel turn to flowers, the reader will marvel. (Adult literary fiction)
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales (Korean translation). Seoul, Korea: Hyundae Munhak Co., Ltd..
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  Korean translation of English language original
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales (Vol I and Vol II, Russian translation). Moscow, Russia: Gayatri/LIVEBOOKS.
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  Two-volume Russian translation of English language original (Tales distributed as: Vol. 1: Russia, Germany, Norway, Denmark; Vol 2: UK, Italy, France, Greece, Vietnam, Japan, Mexico, USA)
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). The Girl in The Castle inside The Museum (Spanish translation). Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones Obelisco.
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  Spanish translation of English language originally published by Random House Children's Books
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum (Hebrew translation). Ben Shemen, Israel: Moden Publishing.
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  Hebrew language translation of English language original
• Hunt, L. (2014). Office at Night: A Novella. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press & The Walker Art Center.
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  Edward Hopper’s Office at Night is open to endless interpretation. Throughout his career, the artist was concerned with the relationship between “the facts” of observation and the improvisation that happened when making a work of art. In conjunction with the exhibition Hopper Drawing: A Painter’s Process, Kate Bernheimer and Laird Hunt adopt a similar process in writing a collaborative novella inspired by the 1940 painting. “Taking up residence” inside the work, the writers have imagined the lives of its characters: stenographer Marge Quinn and her boss, the sometimes painter Abraham Chelikowsky.Released as a serial on the Walker’s website in April, the story was published as an e-book by Coffee House Press in June 2014.

Chapters

• Bernheimer, K. (2017). "100 Percent Human Hair Mullet Wig". In Lost Objects(p. 1). HiLobrow.
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  A 25-part series of nonfiction stories about lost objects. Editors asked 25 writers to tell them about a significant object they’d lost (or thrown away, or destroyed), then assigned these stories to 25 illustrators. This is the fourth volume in the PROJECT:OBJECT series.
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). Whitework. In The Uncanny Reader: Stories from the Shadows(p. 30). New York, NY: St. Martin's.

Journals/Publications

• Bernheimer, K. (2016). Fairy Tale Review (The Ochre Issue). Fairy Tale Review, 12(1), 181.
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  As founding editor and editor of Fairy Tale Review (Wayne State University Press) and in tandem with volunteer MFA student Assistant Editors and undergraduate interns (listed on the masthead as Editorial Assistants), published The Ochre Issue, the 12th annual issue of Fairy Tale Review.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). Flatland. Places Journal, 5.
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  All text by Kate Bernheimer. Design by Ultramoderne, whose principals are Yasmin Vobis and Aaron Forrest. Vobis has taught at Princeton University and currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture 2016-17. Forrest is a licensed architect who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. He received both his Bachelors Degree and Masters in Architecture from Princeton University. This essay (and architect interview) are part of an ongoing series. For five years, the brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer have curated an invited series for Places in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture. Founded at MIT and Berkeley in 1983, Places partners with an international cohort of academic partners including Aarhus School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, ETH Zürich, Georgia Tech, MIT, Pratt Institute, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and many others. Places has associations with leading design faculties around the world. Bridging from the university to the profession to the public, and its articles combine the scope and immediacy of serious journalism with the precision and depth of scholarship.Andrew Bernheimer is a Brooklyn-based architect and the principal of Bernheimer Architecture. Bernheimer was a founding partner of the award-winning firm Della Valle Bernheimer and is an Assistant Professor in the Master of Architecture program at Parsons School of Design.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). Gripho. Places Journal, 5.
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  All text by Kate Bernheimer. Design by Smiljan Radić. Smiljan Radić is a leading Chilean architect and internationally is widely considered one of the most important contemporary architects today .He graduated from Catholic University of Chile in 1989 and studied at the Istitutto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, Italy. He traveled for three years and finally opened his own studio in 1995 in Chile. Chosen as the Best Chilean Architect under 35 by the College of Architects of Chile in 2001, he was selected to be part of Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard 2008 and named an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2009. He has lectured and exhibited internationally, and his work has been published widely, most recently in the monograph “Smiljan Radic, 2003-2013,” El Croquis Magazine N°167.This essay (and architect interview) are part of an ongoing series. For five years, the brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer have curated an invited series in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture.Founded at MIT and Berkeley in 1983, Places partners with an international cohort of academic partners including Aarhus School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, ETH Zürich, Georgia Tech, MIT, Pratt Institute, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and many others. Places has associations with leading design faculties around the world. Bridging from the university to the profession to the public, and its articles combine the scope and immediacy of serious journalism with the precision and depth of scholarship.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). The Punk's Bride & Author Interview. Notre Dame Review, 4.
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  Notre Dame Review is a peer review journal housed in College of Letters at University of Notre Dame. NDR often showcases celebrated authors like Nobel laureates Seamus Heaney and Czeslaw Milosz. Kate Bernheimer is the 'featured author' in Issue 42, including an original short story (the second story of the same title by her) and a featured author interview.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016). Tiddalik the Frog. Places Journal, 6.
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  All text by Kate Bernheimer. Original design by Snøhetta. Snøhetta is an integrated design practice with offices in Oslo and New York City. Team members on the Fairy Tale Architecture project were Samuel Brissette, Craig Dykers, Andrea Gulerez, Lara Kaufman, Jackie Martinez, Elaine Molinar, and Dennis Rijkhoff. For over 25 years, Snøhetta has designed some of the world’s most notable public and cultural projects. Snøhetta kickstarted its career in 1989 with the competition-winning entry for the new library of Alexandria, Egypt. This was later followed by the commission for the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the World Trade Center in New York City, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Expansion, among many others. Since its inception, the practice has maintained its original trans-disciplinary approach, integrating architectural, landscape, and interior design in all of its projects. This essay (and architect interview) are part of an ongoing series. For five years, the brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer have curated an invited series for Places in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture. Andrew Bernheimer is a Brooklyn-based architect and the principal of Bernheimer Architecture. Bernheimer was a founding partner of the award-winning firm Della Valle Bernheimer and is an Assistant Professor in the Master of Architecture program at Parsons School of Design.Founded at MIT and Berkeley in 1983, Places partners with an international cohort of academic partners including Aarhus School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, ETH Zürich, Georgia Tech, MIT, Pratt Institute, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and many others. Places has associations with leading design faculties around the world. Bridging from the university to the profession to the public, and its articles combine the scope and immediacy of serious journalism with the precision and depth of scholarship.
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2016). Magic and the Intellect: Four Writers Consider the Stake of Magic in Literature Today. The Writers Chronicle, 12.
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  Cover Story for The Writer's Chronicle: feature including four essays by Lucy Corin, Anna Joy Springer, Rikki Ducornet, and Kate Bernheimer. For over four decades, the Writer’s Chronicle has served as a leading source of articles, news, and information for writers, editors, students, and teachers of writing. The Writer's Chronicle enjoys a growing print circulation of over 35,000 and is considered the leading professional publication in the academic field of creative writing. Published six times during the academic year and distributed to bookstores by Curtis Circulation Company, LLC, the magazine reaches those who are most actively engaged in contemporary literature: literary writers, teachers, readers, students, editors, publishers, and arts professionals. Published six times during the academic year, the Chronicle provides diverse insights into the art of writing that are accessible, pragmatic, and idealistic. Each issue features in-depth essays on the craft of writing, as well as extensive interviews with accomplished authors. Readers can also find news on publishing trends and literary controversies; a listing of grants, awards, and publication opportunities available to writers; and a list of upcoming conferences for writers, including AWP’s Annual Conference & Bookfair. Our pages are for those who love reading and writing.
• Bernheimer, K., & Bernheimer, K. (2016). The Seven Ravens. Places Journal, 5.
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  Kate and Andrew Bernheimer, “Fairy Tale Architecture: The Seven Ravens,” Places Journal, December 2016. Accessed 13 Mar 2017. https://doi.org/10.22269/161222All text by Kate Bernheimer. Design by Andrew Bernheimer. Andrew Bernheimer is a Brooklyn-based architect and the principal of Bernheimer Architecture. Bernheimer was a founding partner of the award-winning firm Della Valle Bernheimer and is an Assistant Professor in the Master of Architecture program at Parsons School of Design.This essay (and architect interview) are part of an ongoing series. For five years, the brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer have curated an invited series for Places in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture. Founded at MIT and Berkeley in 1983, Places partners with an international cohort of academic partners including Aarhus School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, ETH Zürich, Georgia Tech, MIT, Pratt Institute, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and many others. Places has associations with leading design faculties around the world. Bridging from the university to the profession to the public, and its articles combine the scope and immediacy of serious journalism with the precision and depth of scholarship.
• Bernheimer, K. (2015). Fairy Tale Review (The Mauve Issue). Fairy Tale Review, 11, 225.
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  As editor, gathered and put into production the 11th annual issue of Fairy Tale Review, now published by Wayne State University Press and available as well on JStor. Subscriptions: Around 500. E-downloads: Around 3,000 to date. JStor data available upon request.
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). Surviving an Adult World in Fairy Tales, and Real Life. NPR's All Things Considered (recorded radio commentary).
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  Radio commentary, paired with published article, contextualizing one of the week's news stories -- in this case, the plight of immigrant minors in Arizona -- in the context of a recommended book -- in this case, The Grimm Reader, a volume of Grimm fairy tales translated by Maria Tatar.
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). Surviving an Adult World in Fairy Tales, and Real Life. National Public Radio News Website.
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  Essay that accompanies radio commentary for same venue; two different pieces -- one written, one audio (audio an abbreviated essay on same topic). Contextualizes the plight of immigrant minors within fairy tales, specifically The Brothers Grimm's version of "Hansel and Gretel."
• Bernheimer, K. (2014). The Punk's Bride. The Master's Review, 3.
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  Short story based on the Brothers Grimm tale "The Hare's Bride"
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2014). Fairy Tale Review (The Emerald Issue). Fairy Tale Review, 10, 225.
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  As founding editor, published the 10th anniversary edition of Fairy Tale Review (Wayne State University Press, Journals Division, Series in Fairy-Tale Studies).
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2014). The Snow Bride. Faerie Magazine, 3.
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  Story based on the Japanese folk tale "The Snow Bride," published alongside work by Alice Hoffman and others.

Presentations

• Bernheimer, K. S. (2017, October). Modern American Fairy Tales. Fletcher Lecture Series. Nicholls State University, Thibodeaux LA: letcher Lecture Committee of Nicholls State University, the Department of Languages & Literature, and the Nicholls Student Programming Association.
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  Fairytale author and associate professor of English at the University of Arizona Kate Bernheimer will join the Nicholls campus as the guest speaker for the 2017 Fletcher Lecture Series on Thursday, Oct. 5.Bernheimer will host a question-and-answer session at 11 a.m. in Le Bijou Theatre. At 6:30 p.m., she will deliver a lecture, titled “Modern American Fairy Tales,” in the Gouaux Hall auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.Described as “one of the living masters of the fairy tale” Bernheimer has published five books, a collection of short stories and three children’s books. Her published works include “The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold” in 2001, “The Complete Tales of Merry Gold” in 2006, “The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum” in 2008, “Horse, Flower, Bird” in 2010, “The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold” in 2011, “The Lonely Book” in 2012, “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Brush Her Hair” in 2013, “Office at Night” and “How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales” in 2014.She was the editor of the best-selling book, “My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales” in 2010.Sponsored by the Fletcher Lecture Committee, the Department of Languages & Literature, and the Nicholls Student Programming Association, the Fletcher Lecture Series is in its 32nd year. Last year, NPR radio host Nick Spitzer was the guest speaker. Other previous speakers include Benh Zeitlin, director of “Beasts of the Southern Wild;” Marilynne Robinson, author of Pulitzer Prize Award-winning novel, “Gilead;” and Samuel Pickering, English Professor at the University of Connecticut in Storrs and inspiration for Mr. Keating from the movie, ”Dead Poets Society.”
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2017, September). "Fairy Tales, Object, and Place". Lecture. The New School, 2 W. 13th Street, New York City, New York: Parsons School of Design School of Constructed Environments.
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  Bernheimer will lecture about architectural installation, the interior, the object, and how fairy tales present, interpret, and influence concepts of space and possession. The emphasis will be on the domestic mise-en-scene and how a fairy-tale space illuminates desire and resists domination - collapses the Real and the Imaginary into a beautifully functionless zone.
• Bernheimer, K. (2016, April). Lecture & Reading. La Sociedad para las Artes Distinguished Visiting Author Reading Series. Las Cruces, NM: New Mexico State University, Department of English/MFA Program in Creative Writing.
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  Public lecture and reading, along with Iranian MFA-candidate in fiction Marzie Ghasempour. For more than 25 years, La Sociedad para las Artes has acted as the main outreach organization for the English Department at New Mexico State University. The cornerstone of La Sociedad’s activities, the Distinguished Visiting Writer Series began more than 30 years ago by now-retired faculty members, Joe Somoza and Keith Wilson. Since then, with a very modest budget, La Sociedad has provided NMSU, Las Cruces, and El Paso with a steady stream of the major contemporary regional, national, and international writers of our day, including Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo; National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Andrea Barrett; Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky; MacArthur “Genius Grant” Award winners Ed Hirsh, Barrett, and David Foster Wallace; and Nobel Prize short-listed Chinese dissident poet Bei Dao. Other writers have received literature’s highest honors, serving as models and inspiration for our local audience: Tim O’Brien, Ana Castillo, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Denise Chavez, Larry Brown, Zhang Ur, Dagoberto Gilb, and others. Our readings are popular and many writers comment on the numbers we attract to their readings. Poetry readings usually have at least 100 people in attendance and fiction readings have up to 400 and sometimes more. The audience comprises a mix of students, professors and community members in equal parts and the readings are always free.La Sociedad’s priorities are to interface with the school system and the community, helping to tear down boundaries between “town” and “gown.” As part of a major research university in one of the poorest counties in the country, La Sociedad seeks out opportunities to involve the English department locally, in order to increase public access to our university, making positive connections between all involved. These connections, benefiting the community as they do, also improve our university, since social responsiveness makes NMSU a more flexible, active organization, qualities that generate vital kinds of research. Every year, the organization hosts free evening readings of national caliber, of readers who also offer manuscript consultation to graduate students and craft talks to high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and community members. Since 1996, we have offered the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program, which supports our impoverished school system with one of the lowest literacy scores in the country. Finally, our annual Hunger Benefit, part of a nation-wide movement where writers coordinate reading events to raise money to fight hunger, has raised at least $45,000 for Casa de Peregrinos, a local food bank.
• Bernheimer, K. (2014, February). Magic and the Intellect. Association of Writers and Writing Programs Annual Conference. Seattle, WA: Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).
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  In her essay “The Deep Zoo” Rikki Ducornet writes: “the work of the writer is to move beyond the simple definitions or descriptions of things… and to bring a dream to life through the alchemy of language; to move from the street—the place of received ideas—into the forest—the place of the unknown.” On this panel five fiction writers intend to describe, depict, illustrate, and otherwise expose this movement from known to unknown in order to ask: what do we mean when we say “magic”? With Lucy Corin, Rikki Ducornet, Kate Bernheimer and Anna Joy Springer.
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2014, Summer). Retelling Tales: An Evening with Kate Bernheimer and Genevieve Valentine. Books Beneath the Bridge. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy & WORD Bookstores.
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  Public reading taking place at The Granite Prospect in Brooklyn Bridge Park, a free summer literary series outdoor readings curated by local independent bookstores.

Reviews

• Bernheimer, K. S. (2016. The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová(p. 1).
• Bernheimer, K. S. (2014. William T. Vollmann's Last Stories and Other Stories(p. 2). New York, NY.
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  A review of William T. Vollmann's story collection LAST STORIES AND OTHER STORIES, published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review (NYTBR).

Creative Performances

• Bernheimer, K. S. (2018. Visiting Author. Public Reading and Lecture. Denver, CO: University of Denver, Department of English/MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Others

• Bernheimer, K. S. (2017, Dec). Hope Chest Demythologizing Girlhood in Kate Bernheimer’s Trilogy. Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/10/3/ghs100313.xml
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  Article in peer review journal about my novel trilogy in Girlhood Studies (Winner of the 2009 AAP/PSP Prose Award for Best New Journal in the Social Sciences & Humanities)ABSTRACT by article author, Dr. Catriona McAra, Leeds UniversityIn this article I position the metaphor of the hope chest at the heart of a trilogy of fairy tale novels, The Complete Tales of Ketzia (2001), The Complete Tales of Merry (2006a) and The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold (2011), by Kate Bernheimer that explore traditions of American girlhood. Deploying psychoanalytic interpretative readings, I investigate the characterization of each of the three sisters. My use of the hope chest (as both a toy and a cultural repository) enables me to offer a fuller picture of the social transition depicted in these novels from childhood into womanhood, and is thus conflated with the idea of the child-woman— a hinge-like cultural figure whom Bernheimer represents metaphorically through boxes of accoutrements containing memories and prophecies. With reference to unpublished interviews with Bernheimer, I support my interpretative reading of her trilogy by invoking and explaining the relevance of literary theories related to caskets.