Beth Benedix
North Putnam
October 1, 2023
"North Putnam" depicts a year in the life of a rural Indiana school district and the community it serves. Crafted with empathy, a hyper-real reporting lens and skillfully lush cinematography, the film aims to reach across divides and to spark action-oriented conversations about the interdependence between public schools and community development.
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Director: Joel Fendelman
Executive Producer: Dave Eggers
Producer: Beth Benedix
The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College: A Manifesto for Reinvention
September 29, 2020
"It’s been a rough year for higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen schools experimenting with remote-only learning and bumpy in-person reopenings, leaving students, faculty, and staff stressed, dissatisfied, and worried about their futures. A new book by two longtime professors suggests that the best solution is a total overhaul. Written during this year’s chaos, The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College: A Manifesto for Reinvention outlines the numerous deep-seated problems inside small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) and proposes a massive overhaul of these institutions."—Pearse Anderson, Teen Vogue
Ghost Writer (A Story About Telling a Holocaust Story)
June 1, 2018
Ghost Writer is a labor of love, nine years in the making. Straddling the genres of narrative non-fiction and memoir, Ghost Writer tells the story of the relationship I developed with Holocaust survivor, Joe Koenig, when I was commissioned to write his story. This is a book that struggles with and against what can and cannot be said, that addresses the obligations and insufficiencies of memory, that celebrates the messiness of authentic human interaction. Elie Wiesel's death in 2016 threw into stark relief the fact that, very soon, there will be no one left to provide first-hand accounts of the Holocaust. At its heart, Ghost Writer facilitates a conversation about how and why we will continue to tell these stories, about active listening, empathy and letting go of stubborn biases. I am gratified that it was named a finalist for the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the category of writing/publishing (nonfiction).