Biography
Sheila Benson began writing at the Pacific Sun in Mill Valley, California, after which she became the principal Los Angeles Times Film Critic from 1981-91, and following that, a critic for Microsoft's Cinemania. Affiliated with the National Society of Film Critics, she was awarded the Vesta Award for Journalism in 1987 for her contribution to the arts in Southern California, and taught Critical Writing at UCLA.
She has served on film festival juries of Berlin, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Manila, Taos, Seattle, Aspen, Sundance, Palm Springs and Banff. Her essays and articles have appeared in Interview, Elle, Premiere, Film Comment, Variety, the San Francisco Examiner, London Telegraph's Weekend magazine, Canada's Globe and Mail American Film Magazine and the New York Times
She wrote the narration for "The First 100 Years, A Celebration of American Film" by Chuck Workman, was a writer on the Academy Awards show of 1993, and contributed the liner essay for Horton Foote's Tomorrow in 2004. Since moving to Washington in 1996, she reviews at the Seattle Weekly.
