Sara Benincasa is an American comedian and author.

Biography

Benincasa has a degree in

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

from

Warren Wilson College Warren Wilson College (WWC) is a private liberal arts college in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is known for its curriculum that combines academics, work, and service as every student must complete a required course of study, work an on-campus j ...

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad River, French Broad and Swannanoa River, Swannanoa rivers, it is the county seat of Buncombe County. It is the most populou ...

. She has an M.A. in Secondary School Education from

Teachers College, Columbia University Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education affiliated with Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has been a part of Columbia University since ...

. After graduation, Benincasa taught with

AmeriCorps AmeriCorps ( ; officially the Corporation for National and Community Service or CNCS) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in ...

in Texas. Benincasa was a citizen journalist for

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

covering the

2008 United States presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John Mc ...

as part of MTV's 2008 Emmy Award-winning Think campaign. Sara Benincasa 2007

Benincasa was featured on Nerve.com's BlogALog as a comedic blogger. Her last post on the SJ1000 blog was April 1, 2008, in which she suggested that followers missing her Internet presence go to her official website, her

Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

page, her MTV Think profile, or her blog. Along with her blog, Benincasa filmed a series of interviews titled ''Tub Talk with Sara B''. The series featured Benincasa in a bathtub with various comedic personalities, including

Reggie Watts Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Watts (born March 23, 1972) is an American comedian, musician, beatboxer, and actor. His improvised musical sets are created using only his voice, a keyboard, and a looping machine. He refers to himself as a "disinfo ...

Jonathan Ames Jonathan Ames (; born March 23, 1964) is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs, and is the creator of two television series, ''Bored to Death'' (HBO) and '' Blunt Talk'' (Starz). In the late '90s and early 2000 ...

, and

Andy Borowitz Andy Borowitz (born January 4, 1958) is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor. Borowitz is a ''New York Times''-bestselling author who won the first National Press Club award for humor. He is known for creating the NBC sitcom '' The ...

. Benincasa has since revamped the web series on her YouTube account as ''Gettin' Wet with Sara Benincasa''. Interviewees include

Margaret Cho Margaret Moran Cho (born December 5, 1968) is an American stand-up comedian, actress and musician. In her Stand-up comedy, stand-up routines she critiques social and political problems, especially about race and sexuality. She starred in the Ame ...

Donald Glover Donald McKinley Glover Jr. (; born September 25, 1983), also known by his musical stage name Childish Gambino (), is an American actor, comedian, musician, and filmmaker. While he studied at New York University and after working in Derrick ...

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...

Amanda Palmer Amanda MacKinnon Palmer (born April 30, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and performance artist who is the lead vocalist, pianist, and lyricist of the duo the Dresden Dolls. She performs as a solo artist and was also a memb ...

, and

James Urbaniak James Christian Urbaniak (born September 17, 1963) is an American character actor. He is best known for his roles as Simon Grim in three Hal Hartley films: '' Henry Fool'' (1997), '' Fay Grim'' (2006) and '' Ned Rifle'' (2014), Robert Crumb in '' ...

. She has also contributed to the web site

Jezebel Jezebel ()"Jezebel"
(US) and

. In September 2008, Benincasa began producing a

vlog A vlog (), also known as a video blog or video log, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one ta ...

in which she parodies the role of Republican vice-presidential candidate

Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin (; Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator, and author who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nomi ...

. She is particularly attentive to Palin's Midwestern accent. These vlogs were uploaded to Benincasa's

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

profile until a partnership with

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

's humor site 23/6 was established, and the vlogs were moved to the ''twentythreesix'' YouTube page. In 2009, Benincasa developed a one-woman show about her experiences with

agoraphobia Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no way to escape. These situations can include public transit, shopping centers, crowds and q ...

and

panic attack Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear and Comfort, discomfort that may include palpitations, otherwise defined as a Tachycardia, rapid, Arrhythmia, irregular Heart rate, heartbeat, Hyperhidrosis, sweating, chest pain or discomfort, s ...

s. She has since sold the literary rights to ''Agorafabulous!'' to William Morrow, a division of

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

. Benincasa co-hosted the

Cosmo Radio Cosmo Radio was a channel on Sirius XM Radio. The station launched on March 14, 2006 as a collaboration between SIRIUS Satellite Radio and ''Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional ...

sex/relationship talk show ''Get in Bed'' on

Sirius XM Satellite Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting corporation headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. The company was formed by the 2008 merger ...

until September 2010. She next started a

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

with Marcus Parks, called "Sex and Other Human Activities", which features a sex questions segment (using questions sent via email and

Formspring Spring.me was a social networking service. Until a rebranding in 2013, it was known as Formspring, a question-and-answer-based social network launched in 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack. As of August 1, 2015, t ...

); this launched in February 2011. The episode which aired on September 19, 2012, entitled "End of an Era", is described as "Sara's final show on the old SAOHA". In January 2018, Benincasa offered $300 to any journalist who asked President

Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

about America's relations with the fictitious African nation of

Wakanda Wakanda (), officially the Kingdom of Wakanda, is a fictional country appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the country first appeared in ''Fantastic Four (comic book), Fantastic Four'' ...

, the home of Marvel's ''

Black Panther A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...

''. Her Afro-futurism tweet went viral. On October 10, 2019, she was featured in a 30-minute YouTube documentary created by SoulPancake in collaboration with

Funny or Die Funny or Die, Inc. is a comedy video website and production company owned by Henry R. Muñoz III that was founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Mark Kvamme, and Chris Henchy in 2007. The website contained exclusive material from a regular staf ...

. A variety of comedians discuss mental health called ''Laughing Matters.''

Books

Fiction

* ''Great'', New York::

HarperTeen HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is ...

, 2014, * ''DC Trip'', Culver City, California: Adaptive Books, 2015, * ''Tim Kaine Is Your Nice Dad: A Work of Dad Fiction'', 2016

Nonfiction

* ''Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom'', New York: William Morrow, 2012, * ''Real Artists Have Day Jobs (And Other Awesome Things They Don't Teach You In School)'', New York: William Morrow, 2016,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Benincasa, Sara Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American novelists American women novelists American women podcasters American health and wellness podcasters American stand-up comedians American talk radio hosts American women radio hosts American women comedians Living people Teachers College, Columbia University alumni American video bloggers American women video bloggers Warren Wilson College alumni 21st-century American women writers Comedians from New York City Novelists from New York (state) 21st-century American comedians