Aimee Bender was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 28, 1969. The youngest of three girls, Bender idolized her older sisters and often tagged along after them. Bender’s father, a psychiatrist, and her mother, a choreographer, were early influences; in an interview with pif magazine, Bender said, “My dad, through psychiatry, is dealing with the unconscious . . . and my mom is delving into her own unconscious to make up dances. . . . And I’m sort of the combo platter, in that psychiatry is so essentially verbal . . . and also I am like her in that it’s all about creating from this inexplicable mysterious place.” Another early influence was the book Transformations by Anne Sexton, a volume of rewritten fairy tales, which Bender read as a teenager. “Only later, in rereading it, did I see how hugely it had influenced my own stuff...