Sheila Bender (born 1948) is an American poet and essayist, best known for her popular books on writing instruction.
Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in anthologies, newspapers, and literary magazines around North America, including The Bellingham Review, Northwest Passage, Poetry Northwest, The Seattle Times, and the Women's Studies Quarterly.
Her memoir, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief, chronicles how reading and writing poetry helped her cope after the loss of her 25-year-old son and find a way to live with love in the spirit of her son.
[4] She is also a regular instructor, panelist, and presenter at writing and educational conferences,[3] including at Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, Washington, and many locations where annual Writing It Real conferences have been held, such as Port Townsend; Oracle, Arizona; Nashville, Tennessee; and Istanbul, Turkey.
Bender is known for her three-step response method that helps authors receive response from trusted listeners, which empowers authors' efforts at revision rather than have them feel their work is being "critiqued" or "torn apart," as the root of that word implies.