Bio
ALEX BEHR
is the author of Planet Grim: Stories (7.13 Books) and is writing a second collection for 7.13, to be published the spring of 2026.
She is the co-author of the short fiction chapbook Cold Plum Wine (Picture Frame Press) and the author of the poetry chapbook Grief Stick (Picture Frame Press).
She received an MFA in creative writing from Portland State. She has taught intermediate fiction at the college level, creative writing residencies at Portland high schools for 10 years through Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools and at the Portland Book Festival, online at Corporeal Writing, and new in 2025, in person at Up Up Books, The Attic, and Literary Arts.
Her interviews, essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared widely, including in Salon, Tin House, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Cleaver, X-R-A-Y, Propeller, The Rumpus, Oregon ArtsWatch, Oregon Humanities, Lumina, Portland Review, and Gravity of the Thing.
She has participated in and/or organized numerous readings in Portland, San Francisco, and New York City, and has contributed her writing to a podcast, cable TV show, and other media projects.
Complete list of published writing and readings
What she learned from her mom: always carry a pack of cards
What her cat taught her: not a damn thing.
Grief Stick: Film and Chapbook
Alex Behr received an Arts3C grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council to produce a short documentary film with director/editor Brian Padian called Grief Stick. A poetry chapbook of the same name accompanies it (Picture Frame Press).
Release date: fall 2024. Now in its second edition. See Powell’s, Broadway Books, Up Up Books, and Propeller Books (Urbanite).
Film premiere in Portland: Feb 2025 — details to come.
Planet Grim: Stories
Her debut story collection, Planet Grim, is a vivid, unsettling portrait of the gritty fringes of San Francisco and Portland, where complicated characters long for connection just out of reach. 7.13 Books IndieBound Amazon
Altar/Altered: Sacred Objects and Adoption Stories
In 2022 she received a generous RACC grant to support Altar/Altered — sacred objects + adoption stories. Adoption weaves through lives, fundamentally altering them. Spanning generations and cultures, six people share their adoption stories through the lens of personally sacred objects — with links to their projects. Interviews by Alex Behr. Paintings ©Christine Shields.
Hot Pockets
She is the co-founder of HOT POCKETS, a reading series of excerpts from debauched rock bios.
Gresham
She is the bassist in GRESHAM. She toured and recorded in underground bands in the 1990s in the Bay Area and wrote for fanzines, including Bananafish.
Adoption Passages
She organized an adoption event called Adoption Passages: Stories, Music, and Art in November 2024, filmed and broadcast at Open Signal, Portland.
Awards / Education
Alex holds an MFA in creative writing from Portland State and a BA in humanities from UC-Berkeley.
Awards and honors: Winner, The Tom Doulis Graduate Fiction Writing Award, 2010; Finalist, The Tom and Phyllis Burnam Award in Graduate Fiction, 2010; Winner, Tom Bates Essay Award, 2009; Finalist, Tom Bates Award for Reporting, 2009; Finalist, Tom Doulis Graduate Fiction Award, 2009; Winner, Tom Bates Award for Reporting, 2008
Grants
Make-Build-Learn grant, Regional Arts and Culture Council
Arts3C grant, Regional Arts and Culture Council
and blah-de-blah. gimme some cookie dough.