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About Me

Author.​

Early in my gender transition, I tried killing off my female past. But my deadname, Talia, fought back. She kept barging into consciousness, insisting on being seen and integrated into the man I was becoming.

My memoir, Calling My Deadname Home, is Talia and my story, and it goes beyond gender to explore what it means to come home.

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I won the 2024 London Independent Short Story Prize in Flash Fiction and was shortlisted and highly commended for the 2023 Oxford Flash Fiction Prize. My story “Angel” won the UK’s first transgender writing short story competition, and my co-edited anthology Trans Homo … Gasp! was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

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Psychologist.​

I've published psychology research on "stereotype threat," an experience that happens when people branch into programs and positions in which their group(s) is/are in the minority (for example, female engineers or CEOs).​

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Writing Coach.​

As a writing coach, I bring psychological knowledge, insights, and skills to support the vulnerability inherent in writing about life's most meaningful and tender moments. â€‹â€‹

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RESEARCH INTERESTS

EDUCATION

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)

Storytelling and EDI

Stereotype Threat & EDI Interventions

The Impact of Being Authentic

1992 – 1997

Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA)

    Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology

    M.Ph., Cognitive Psychology

    M.S., Cognitive Psychology

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2021 – 2022

Birkbeck, University of London (London, UK)

    MFA Creative Writing

   

© Avi Ben-Zeev 2025

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