Helen Benedict, a British-American professor at Columbia University, is the author of eight novels, six nonfiction books, and a play. Her latest novel, The Good Deed, came out in April 2024 from Red Hen Press. Benedict received PEN’s Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, among other awards. Her coverage of sexual assault in the U.S. military inspired the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Invisible War and instigated a landmark lawsuit against the Pentagon on behalf of victims of military sexual assault.