Graywolf Press has purchased Ben's novel, The Wilding, for release in late 2009.

In the fall of 2008, Ben will begin teaching in the MFA program at Iowa State University.

Dodge dropped off a one-ton Ram at Ben's house. He writes about the experience in the July issue of Esquire. Click here to read the article.

Filmmaker James Ponsoldt, representing the "Refresh, Refresh" screenplay, was selected as a "Fast Track" fellow at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival. To read the article in Forbes, click here.

Prizes, Honors and Awards

Winner of the Ann Powers Book-length Fiction Award, Council for Wisconsin Writers, 2008

The Pushcart Prize Fellowship, 2007

John Gardner Fellowship in Fiction, Breadloaf Writer's Conference, Summer 2007

$10,000 Plimpton Prize, The Paris Review, 2007

The Language of Elk (Carnegie Mellon University Press) short-listed for the Story Prize, 2006

"Refresh, Refresh," The Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses, 2007.

"Refresh, Refresh," Best American Short Stories 2006, ed. Ann Patchett

"Where to Begin" $1,000 Tamarack Award, Minnesota Monthly, 2006

"Swans" $1,000 Editor's Prize, The Idaho Review, Volume VI, 2004

Tennessee Williams Scholarship, 2003 Sewanee Writers' Conference

"Falling" $1,500 Prize, 2002 Nelson Algren Award, The Chicago Tribune