Many Experimental and Literary Fiction Writing classes are available with Tantra Bensko, in groups, or one on one. Editing, Writing Coaching, and Tutoring of any compatible type of writing is also available.
Upcoming online class in Experimental Fiction Writing at Sclipo.com, May 30, 2012, 10 weeks, 400 dollars.
It's sign up time now for the CLASS and I'm looking forward to talking with prospective students. Read about it.
Writing Tutors, San Francisco
Contact Tantra at flameflower@runbox.com for one on one coaching online, or in person in Berkeley, or group classes, or editing of your project. Tantra does Not write papers for classes.
One on one coaching available for fiction, poetry, or non fiction. Editing services, and group classes in Experimental Fiction and Spiritual Prose.
" I give Tantra an A as a teacher. Really.
Tantra, I have taken about two dozen classes online (Gotham Writers Workshop and BerkleeMusic.com). You and 3 other teachers all get A-s and Gold Medals! The other 20 teachers are nice people and are masters of their topic, but, they don't give themselves heart and soul to their students, like you do. I sense that you deeply want us to develop as writers of Experimental Fiction. You nurture us with a passion of someone on a mission.
Together we will change the world.
Un abrazo,
Lynette"
Tantra, I have taken about two dozen classes online (Gotham Writers Workshop and BerkleeMusic.com). You and 3 other teachers all get A-s and Gold Medals! The other 20 teachers are nice people and are masters of their topic, but, they don't give themselves heart and soul to their students, like you do. I sense that you deeply want us to develop as writers of Experimental Fiction. You nurture us with a passion of someone on a mission.
Together we will change the world.
Un abrazo,
Lynette"
Do you write outside the commercial conventions, and prefer innovative literary fiction?
Maybe you don't believe the traditional action oriented plot arc, full of drama and conflict, is important. Maybe you don't identify with the world view of the characters or the authors of the books you see on the shelves of the airport bookstores.
Maybe your voice is so unique, the way you write has never been seen before.
Maybe you've never written anything, but want to explore something new, to break out of the routine ways your mind works, get playful, tenderize the places in your brain that are getting to leathery and forge new synapses.
Maybe you want to write about subjects that literature generally avoids. Maybe you like to play with structure and point of view, and ways the words are placed on the page, and delight in the process, like to have more fun than staying within the run of the mill stories.
Very little is written about how to write experimental fiction compared to instructions for traditional literature. New literature that is taught and critically referenced is most often very innovative. Yet few classes are taught about experimental fiction in colleges, or online. Experimental Fiction is highly regarded in the literary world as the forefront of the avant-garde, history making, cutting edge, and simply some of the most entertaining, mentally stimulating, and emotionally satisfying literature out there. Want to explore?
Maybe your voice is so unique, the way you write has never been seen before.
Maybe you've never written anything, but want to explore something new, to break out of the routine ways your mind works, get playful, tenderize the places in your brain that are getting to leathery and forge new synapses.
Maybe you want to write about subjects that literature generally avoids. Maybe you like to play with structure and point of view, and ways the words are placed on the page, and delight in the process, like to have more fun than staying within the run of the mill stories.
Very little is written about how to write experimental fiction compared to instructions for traditional literature. New literature that is taught and critically referenced is most often very innovative. Yet few classes are taught about experimental fiction in colleges, or online. Experimental Fiction is highly regarded in the literary world as the forefront of the avant-garde, history making, cutting edge, and simply some of the most entertaining, mentally stimulating, and emotionally satisfying literature out there. Want to explore?
"Hello everyone!
I appreciate having been in this class with so many creative, dynamic and strong people. All the feedback I have received has been helpful. I appreciate reading your work and entering your universe."
I appreciate having been in this class with so many creative, dynamic and strong people. All the feedback I have received has been helpful. I appreciate reading your work and entering your universe."
Photo by Aaron Irons in Powell, Alabama
"Writing Experimental Fiction (Online) (Spring 2010) This class is amazing. I never felt my writing ‘fit in’ until this class. I didn’t even know these genres existed! I am so pleased to have found a home! The instructor, Tantra Bensko, teaches from the heart. Not only is she a fantastic author in the realm of Lucid Fiction, but also is an artist. I admire her dedication to the craft and her productivity! Tantra, you are amazing! I am under the impression that this course is a new one for UCLA, and I CHERISH IT! I thank the gods for bringing it to me, and am planning on signing up for every other Tantra course available, UCLA or no. I have been able to open up and write what I want without hindrance for the first time in this course, and successfully so. YAY! DISCLAIMER: You don’t have to be a Lucid Fiction writer to love this course. I think everyone should participate… Harry Potter lovers to Italio Calvino lovers will get something out of it." Lori at PunkPen
WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE ONE OF TANTRA BENSKO'S EXPERIMENTAL FICTION WRITING CLASSES ONLINE AND DEVELOP YOUR WORK, EMPOWER YOUR ECCENTRICITIES TO TURN THEM INTO STRENGTHS, PREPARE YOUR FICTION FOR PUBLICATION IN EXCITING MAGAZINES?
If you have a spiritual bent, you can let her know you're interested in learning Spiritual Prose.
Here is an article about the classes, in SWI. These are the Experimental Fiction Writing class referred to here.
Here is one from the newsletter at WritersCollege about the other online option through their institution.
The Experimental Fiction Writing: Joining the Dialogue class is one on one with Writers College. This one begins at any time, so is an option open right now, for Experimental Fiction Writing online. However, this one is less intensive than studying with her through her own Academy, which will cover much more material in the same length of time, for a higher fee.
Tantra teaches classes through her own academy, including custom online study of literary fiction writing individualized for each student, Lucid Fiction, and Advanced Fiction Writing. Tantra's writing academy can be seen by clicking HERE.
And, if you live close by, you study regularly classes in person. If you live in Berkeley, you can do one on one custom classes, or she can edit your writing, help you brainstorm, publish, get past writer's block, and work on fiction, poetry, and/or non-fiction.
Why take the class? Some quotes from students about their goals with it
"In this class, I want to achieve freedom. I feel locked in--locked in to this body, to my job, to my current circumstances, to illness--there are so many ways that I feel like I'm trapped & I'm wanting to stretch my poetry into something beyond boundaries--like a prose poem--like something where people say "And what exactly is that?" I want to let myself loose, because I feel pretty caged up at the moment."
"I am excited to work with you all and am really happy that Tantra offers this experimental course. My fears are that I won't be able to let go and run wildly enough with it. BUT, it has to be more than I would do if I wasn't taking the class, so I welcome what ever incremental openings which I can experience."
"My goal for the here and now is to push myself in different writing directions. My undergrad experience was in a more literary, non-experimental world; I focused on fiction, but have written much in the way of creative nonfiction, screenplays, stageplays, and poetry. I didn't actively push the boundaries back then, but often found that I had. I will be joining a much more experimental writing community later this year and would like to test the waters before I jump in there.
I find that the literature and film I have always been drawn to pushes into the experimental, playing with the conventions of their respective media in some manner. I have to do the same in my own writing or I lose interest; if my writing doesn't excite me, there's no hope. Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm not the biggest fan of straight forward, literary fiction. I like when there is something off in the characters or the world, something that intrigues me."
and, by A.S. Andrews, (www.asandrews.com), a brilliant statement of goals that is a great work of experimental writing in itself:
"The peacocks are driving me crazy. I think it’s peacocks anyway. Every night at sundown, I hear them screaming. At first I thought it was cats. Had to be cats, making that god-awful yowling racket, sounding like they were getting slaughtered out there. Except they should have been gone after a night of that, and the racket keeps coming back. All that noise, and I’ve only seen one cat round abouts. One! In the full light of day, and he didn’t make a peep.
Peacocks, someone told me, it’s the peacocks. But there aren’t supposed to be any peacocks left, not after they hunted them all down, and every time I go out walking, I can’t find a single one. Just that big empty cage up the hill. Of course, I never go out at sundown, not after what happened with Joe, and maybe that’s the problem . .
There’s a certain dream state I used to find as a child, and once I wrote a whole story that way, and it won a contest. I’ve been looking for that state ever since. Sometimes I find my way back, but it’s harder now.
I’m looking for those peacocks, and all I find is an empty cage, with a hole big enough to crawl in, but it closes in on you the deeper you go, and I get stuck with my head in, and my arms pinned down and my feet flapping out in the wind.
Sometimes I write from dreams, sometimes from an image I saw that struck me, or a sound or a song I heard that I can’t get out of my head. The most random things will grab me, and I start to obsess, and it’s over. Something demands to be written from it, and I swear that dream state knows what, but I can’t get back there. Take the peacocks, for example.
I want to find the peacocks in this class. They’re out there, staring at me with all those fanned out eyes, just beyond the hedges and the wild ivy vines.
I’m not one hundred percent sure what experimental writing is, or where I want to go with it. The course description was one of those things that caught my eye and resonated – every fiber of my rational mind told me I don’t have time for this, but I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stop thinking about it until I finally enrolled. And the peacocks screamed again.
I want to play a bit, and see where it takes me. I’m tired of thinking in boxes, tired of the literary versus commercial labels, tired of trying to fit into a genre. Much of my writing tends to have an otherworld aspect to it – ghosts, magic, horror, aliens. As I write this, of course, I realize that the last two flash pieces I submitted have absolutely nothing otherworldly in them – one was a take on religion and the other on karma. I find myself drawn to questions of life and death, God and the lack of a God, what it means to be sane.
I’ve always felt like I should love Chaucer, and Dante, and Shakespeare, but, while I respect them, I don’t love them (shush, I didn’t really say that! the peacocks might hear . . . ). I love Alice in Wonderland (though I have yet to see the movie). I like adventure, quests, attempts to understand what is happening in the world, why we are the way we are, where we’ve been and where we are going. But I like things that feel accessible to me, right now, today.
I’m constantly trying to find my way, I think, and so my reading and writing is all over the board, an attempt to wrap my mind around the things that boggle it. Like those peacocks I’m hearing – what are they, where are they, are they even they? I don’t want to be labeled, I already bear too many labels, I want to make it all fit. Some days I like the commercial standards, and I’m working on a novel that’s fairly commercial. Others days I have no attention span, ping-ponged among my children, reading snips of flash here and there, trying to find that recipe for pineapple fried rice, and other days, I want to dream, to play, to experiment."
"I am excited to work with you all and am really happy that Tantra offers this experimental course. My fears are that I won't be able to let go and run wildly enough with it. BUT, it has to be more than I would do if I wasn't taking the class, so I welcome what ever incremental openings which I can experience."
"My goal for the here and now is to push myself in different writing directions. My undergrad experience was in a more literary, non-experimental world; I focused on fiction, but have written much in the way of creative nonfiction, screenplays, stageplays, and poetry. I didn't actively push the boundaries back then, but often found that I had. I will be joining a much more experimental writing community later this year and would like to test the waters before I jump in there.
I find that the literature and film I have always been drawn to pushes into the experimental, playing with the conventions of their respective media in some manner. I have to do the same in my own writing or I lose interest; if my writing doesn't excite me, there's no hope. Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm not the biggest fan of straight forward, literary fiction. I like when there is something off in the characters or the world, something that intrigues me."
and, by A.S. Andrews, (www.asandrews.com), a brilliant statement of goals that is a great work of experimental writing in itself:
"The peacocks are driving me crazy. I think it’s peacocks anyway. Every night at sundown, I hear them screaming. At first I thought it was cats. Had to be cats, making that god-awful yowling racket, sounding like they were getting slaughtered out there. Except they should have been gone after a night of that, and the racket keeps coming back. All that noise, and I’ve only seen one cat round abouts. One! In the full light of day, and he didn’t make a peep.
Peacocks, someone told me, it’s the peacocks. But there aren’t supposed to be any peacocks left, not after they hunted them all down, and every time I go out walking, I can’t find a single one. Just that big empty cage up the hill. Of course, I never go out at sundown, not after what happened with Joe, and maybe that’s the problem . .
There’s a certain dream state I used to find as a child, and once I wrote a whole story that way, and it won a contest. I’ve been looking for that state ever since. Sometimes I find my way back, but it’s harder now.
I’m looking for those peacocks, and all I find is an empty cage, with a hole big enough to crawl in, but it closes in on you the deeper you go, and I get stuck with my head in, and my arms pinned down and my feet flapping out in the wind.
Sometimes I write from dreams, sometimes from an image I saw that struck me, or a sound or a song I heard that I can’t get out of my head. The most random things will grab me, and I start to obsess, and it’s over. Something demands to be written from it, and I swear that dream state knows what, but I can’t get back there. Take the peacocks, for example.
I want to find the peacocks in this class. They’re out there, staring at me with all those fanned out eyes, just beyond the hedges and the wild ivy vines.
I’m not one hundred percent sure what experimental writing is, or where I want to go with it. The course description was one of those things that caught my eye and resonated – every fiber of my rational mind told me I don’t have time for this, but I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stop thinking about it until I finally enrolled. And the peacocks screamed again.
I want to play a bit, and see where it takes me. I’m tired of thinking in boxes, tired of the literary versus commercial labels, tired of trying to fit into a genre. Much of my writing tends to have an otherworld aspect to it – ghosts, magic, horror, aliens. As I write this, of course, I realize that the last two flash pieces I submitted have absolutely nothing otherworldly in them – one was a take on religion and the other on karma. I find myself drawn to questions of life and death, God and the lack of a God, what it means to be sane.
I’ve always felt like I should love Chaucer, and Dante, and Shakespeare, but, while I respect them, I don’t love them (shush, I didn’t really say that! the peacocks might hear . . . ). I love Alice in Wonderland (though I have yet to see the movie). I like adventure, quests, attempts to understand what is happening in the world, why we are the way we are, where we’ve been and where we are going. But I like things that feel accessible to me, right now, today.
I’m constantly trying to find my way, I think, and so my reading and writing is all over the board, an attempt to wrap my mind around the things that boggle it. Like those peacocks I’m hearing – what are they, where are they, are they even they? I don’t want to be labeled, I already bear too many labels, I want to make it all fit. Some days I like the commercial standards, and I’m working on a novel that’s fairly commercial. Others days I have no attention span, ping-ponged among my children, reading snips of flash here and there, trying to find that recipe for pineapple fried rice, and other days, I want to dream, to play, to experiment."
See more about Tantra's Writing Coaching, Editing, and Classes
Tantra's listing on Thumbtack. You can read my answers to a lot of questions about teaching, and publishing here.
Tantra's listing on TeachStreet.
There are various articles on this site as well on writing. Check them out if you like.
Tantra's listing on TeachStreet.
There are various articles on this site as well on writing. Check them out if you like.
Comments from classes
"The joy is mutual. Since taking the class I have felt more boldness to step outside the box in my writing. Your chapbook is something I would like to read. Would you protest if I ordered it and tried to integrate it into our discussions? I don't know if my gift will be lucid writing, but the imagery and tone heightened my awareness so might help in clearing a space inside for writing more creatively......."
"Hey Tantra, something about just going on your experimental fiction class is blowing my mind."
"Thank you, Tantra, for your wonderful class! Your material and encouragement got me to write something I wouldn't have attempted before. And it got picked up by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I am totally blown away. Thank you for opening our minds and encouraging our talents to create new pathways.
A big hug! :)"
"Hello Tantra,
This class means a lot to me, too. You are creating a magical place and have gathered us in. It is like alchemy how you welcome us and where we safe and understood -- free to explore beyond the previous limits of our creativity. I feel very fortunate to have encountered you and your class."
"Tantra may be the most organized instructor I had, one of the most creative with projects, and certainly encouraging and inspiring."
"Orchids are everywhere. Just like talent. We just need nurturing rain to flourish.
This class is a fresh shower of creative nurturing rain, for me."
"Hello Tantra,
Yes, I am so looking forward to the next class with you, and I hope with everyone in our dynamic creative group right now.
You know, 25 years ago when I took a women's journal writing course in college, we were assigned to journal our dreams. As I did that, I found dream-state visions happening as I walked across campus. I was worried I would not be able to focus on my studies (and getting all the right forms turned into Financial Aid on time) if I was living in a dream state. So, I stopped journaling.
However, all these years later, I find myself comfortable with and embracing the dream state as it more and more "leaks" into daily life, because of opening the channels with the reading, thinking, writing and dialoging we are doing here in this class.
Thank you, Tantra. I look forward to our continued journeys.
- Lynette"
"I think too often, writing classes (not this one, though!) get the student too bogged down in academic theories & definitions & forget to let them just fly & get creative. The ideas on this site help more conventional writers to start thinking in a different way, and they do it in a way that's fun, rather than dry & academic."
"Sajith,
I find your writing very cinematic whether it be with human actors in this case, or animation with your Maya piece. You cause me to have very active visuals in my mind. I even at times have a hazing in and out like I would be drunk. So your words are creating a very imaginative space in my mind. I actually am not sure how you are doing it. Maybe it is the odd word patterning, or events?
Apryl
"Philip,
I have never seen this technique done before. I had to fight the urge to skip every other line and read one story at a time. The result of not skipping ended up thrusting me very much into the feeling of the interior life and the exterior life that happens simultaneously but can be so unrelated or even related but different. It also gave me the sense of never losing the person we were in the past and that prior self simultaneously existing in the current life and the impacts it can bring, or just the playing of its existence. I think this is a MARVELOUS exercise to give to writers or students to create another level of thinking.
I loved what your piece and technique did in thrusting me effectively into alternative realities. Very cool!
I was really caught by surprise at how much and on how many levels your piece impacted me and so effectively swooped me away.Good job!
I'm not kidding, I am really impressed what this did to my mind and at 10:00 pm!
And I think that if I had not forced myself to read the lines as you placed them, I'm not sure that I would have had such effective as an experience. Letting it flip back and forth and allowing my mind to be confused was definitely part of the mind alternating experience, almost like being drug induced.
And the thing that it also makes me realize is in an observational manner that I have never quite seen before- this is how I live my life. (Of course many people must too.) Your piece is the only thing that I have ever read that has matched my sense of dualistic life experiences! It really makes me get a grasp on how I have experienced life in an entirely comprehensive way which I have never known before.
I really thank you!!!
Apryl"
" Thanks, Tantra! I feel like I finally got out of the box with this one. It's made me want to do more "experimental" fiction, too. I just wasn't ready to abandon traditional structure completely with my first story, but with this one it seemed so effortless. It's almost like I had to be given permission--like I had to give myself permission."
"Well, okay, mostly I love getting critiques! It is so helpful to get other perspectives - after all, we all have different life, different experiences, different point of view....I've been asked to take what seemed like crap to me and was encouraged to push farther, reach deeper, consider this or that. I even like the comments that say things like "this doesn't make sense" or "I got lost here". Those are the most telling - they tell me I need to explain better, or rework it entirely, or start over.
Thank you all for your kind and insightful comments throughout. They have been so helpful. And thanks too for all the "atta girl" when I submitted and subsequently (now!) got accepted by Bewildering Stories.
I'm now so jazzed by everyone's wonderful comments, suggestions, and encouragement, that I plan on making at least four four-part stories, and I'm doing research to find an illustrator. After I do loads more research and loads more writing, I'm going to contact a consultant/friend I have in NY, send her all my stuff and ask her for suggestion for an agent."
"Hey Tantra, something about just going on your experimental fiction class is blowing my mind."
"Thank you, Tantra, for your wonderful class! Your material and encouragement got me to write something I wouldn't have attempted before. And it got picked up by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I am totally blown away. Thank you for opening our minds and encouraging our talents to create new pathways.
A big hug! :)"
"Hello Tantra,
This class means a lot to me, too. You are creating a magical place and have gathered us in. It is like alchemy how you welcome us and where we safe and understood -- free to explore beyond the previous limits of our creativity. I feel very fortunate to have encountered you and your class."
"Tantra may be the most organized instructor I had, one of the most creative with projects, and certainly encouraging and inspiring."
"Orchids are everywhere. Just like talent. We just need nurturing rain to flourish.
This class is a fresh shower of creative nurturing rain, for me."
"Hello Tantra,
Yes, I am so looking forward to the next class with you, and I hope with everyone in our dynamic creative group right now.
You know, 25 years ago when I took a women's journal writing course in college, we were assigned to journal our dreams. As I did that, I found dream-state visions happening as I walked across campus. I was worried I would not be able to focus on my studies (and getting all the right forms turned into Financial Aid on time) if I was living in a dream state. So, I stopped journaling.
However, all these years later, I find myself comfortable with and embracing the dream state as it more and more "leaks" into daily life, because of opening the channels with the reading, thinking, writing and dialoging we are doing here in this class.
Thank you, Tantra. I look forward to our continued journeys.
- Lynette"
"I think too often, writing classes (not this one, though!) get the student too bogged down in academic theories & definitions & forget to let them just fly & get creative. The ideas on this site help more conventional writers to start thinking in a different way, and they do it in a way that's fun, rather than dry & academic."
"Sajith,
I find your writing very cinematic whether it be with human actors in this case, or animation with your Maya piece. You cause me to have very active visuals in my mind. I even at times have a hazing in and out like I would be drunk. So your words are creating a very imaginative space in my mind. I actually am not sure how you are doing it. Maybe it is the odd word patterning, or events?
Apryl
"Philip,
I have never seen this technique done before. I had to fight the urge to skip every other line and read one story at a time. The result of not skipping ended up thrusting me very much into the feeling of the interior life and the exterior life that happens simultaneously but can be so unrelated or even related but different. It also gave me the sense of never losing the person we were in the past and that prior self simultaneously existing in the current life and the impacts it can bring, or just the playing of its existence. I think this is a MARVELOUS exercise to give to writers or students to create another level of thinking.
I loved what your piece and technique did in thrusting me effectively into alternative realities. Very cool!
I was really caught by surprise at how much and on how many levels your piece impacted me and so effectively swooped me away.Good job!
I'm not kidding, I am really impressed what this did to my mind and at 10:00 pm!
And I think that if I had not forced myself to read the lines as you placed them, I'm not sure that I would have had such effective as an experience. Letting it flip back and forth and allowing my mind to be confused was definitely part of the mind alternating experience, almost like being drug induced.
And the thing that it also makes me realize is in an observational manner that I have never quite seen before- this is how I live my life. (Of course many people must too.) Your piece is the only thing that I have ever read that has matched my sense of dualistic life experiences! It really makes me get a grasp on how I have experienced life in an entirely comprehensive way which I have never known before.
I really thank you!!!
Apryl"
" Thanks, Tantra! I feel like I finally got out of the box with this one. It's made me want to do more "experimental" fiction, too. I just wasn't ready to abandon traditional structure completely with my first story, but with this one it seemed so effortless. It's almost like I had to be given permission--like I had to give myself permission."
"Well, okay, mostly I love getting critiques! It is so helpful to get other perspectives - after all, we all have different life, different experiences, different point of view....I've been asked to take what seemed like crap to me and was encouraged to push farther, reach deeper, consider this or that. I even like the comments that say things like "this doesn't make sense" or "I got lost here". Those are the most telling - they tell me I need to explain better, or rework it entirely, or start over.
Thank you all for your kind and insightful comments throughout. They have been so helpful. And thanks too for all the "atta girl" when I submitted and subsequently (now!) got accepted by Bewildering Stories.
I'm now so jazzed by everyone's wonderful comments, suggestions, and encouragement, that I plan on making at least four four-part stories, and I'm doing research to find an illustrator. After I do loads more research and loads more writing, I'm going to contact a consultant/friend I have in NY, send her all my stuff and ask her for suggestion for an agent."
photo by Thomas Jarrell Bensko
About Tantra Bensko
She is the author of full length fiction collection Lucid Membrane by Night Publishing, with other full length books slated for later, including a collection called Collapsible Horizon, from Taylor Street Publishing, and Yard Triangles, from Make-Do Publishing. She also has a 50 page short story chapbook, Watching the Windows Sleep, by Naissance Press which also published her tiny chapbook, Swinging on the Edge of Day, The Cabinet of What You Don't See from ISMs Press, and the poetry chapbook Liminal, was published by 12 Pages Press. She has 180 creative writing publications, with just as many non-fiction, including literary criticism and theory. She is a collaborator of the Stepchamber.
Her writing has won awards, such as from the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies, Punk Pen, Medulla Review, Academy of American Poet's Award for a poem at Carolina Quarterly, Editors' Pick, and Journeys Awards from Cezanne's Carrot, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Rose and Thorn, and been short listed for a prize from Glimmertrain. Her writing has been Featured in Southern Hum, Mannequin Envy, and Global Visions. Her work has been chosen to represent Anhinga's North of Wakulla anthology, and was chosen twice for Bewildering Stories' Quarterly Review of their favorite works. A few of the print publications include Fiction International, the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Apes, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Sein und Werden, Alchemy Review, Cosmopsis, and many others.
She self-published a book called Tantric Metaportals, which combines her art and text to take the reader into an altered state of consciousness, using traditional Tantra Yogic techniques of breathing, visualization, meditation, chanting mantras, muscle clenching, and conceptualizing, as well as gazing at the images which function like yantras or mandalas. Taraka Serano's Dance of Shiva Press published 5 small books in the 90's and a magazine that Tantra was the Editor of.
She created this resource site, Experimental Writing, and Exclusive Magazine, the FlameFlower Experimental Short Story Writing Contest, and LucidPlay Publishing e-chapbook series. She has reviewed many innovative fiction books, at Speak Without Interruption.
She obtained her BA and MA in English from FSU, and her MFA from the Writing Workshop at Iowa in the 80s. She taught writing in three universities, and teaches Experimental Fiction Writing through www.writerscollege.com and UCLA Extension Writing Program online and in her own Academy on Sclipo.
Tantra is the developer of the concept of Lucid Fiction, which includes most specifically a style of experimental fiction, and also includes all media, creative or non-fiction which addresses through form and content the new paradigm of waking up within the illusions our society has lived with for so long. Lucid Fiction also refers to the fiction we live in based on those illusions becoming more limpid as we become more aware of the truth behind it, to the best of our ability to perceive it. Her articles and interviews can be seen linked in the page About Experimental Writing and in her website, called Lucid Fiction. her students are some of the more enthusiastic writers of the genre. (The band, Lucid Fiction, independently came up with the term as well, and shares the meaning of the concept.) She is guest edited the Lucid Fiction section, as well as co-edited the Prosetry section, of Medulla Review's summer 2011 issue.
She lives in Berkeley. She loves absurd play.
