Bio
Alicia Eler (they/she) is a writer, arts journalist and culture critic. She is the author of The Selfie Generation and are currently the visual art critic/reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune, which won a 2021 Pulitzer Prize for the breaking news reporting of George Floyd’s killing. Alicia’s work has been published in The Guardian, New York Magazine, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, The Markaz Review and more. Her fiction, which has appeared in Queen Mobs Teahouse and Projecttile Lit, investigates sexuality, second-generation immigrant experiences, and the Turkish diaspora. Alicia grew up in Chicago and is currently based in Minneapolis.
Her first book, The Selfie Generation: How Our Self-Images Are Changing Our Notions of Privacy, Sex, Consent, and Culture, experimentally combined memoir and non-fiction to investigate the oft-misunderstood self-reflective photo. Alicia is an early digital adopter, and was one of the first writers to write extensively about the selfie in a pre-Snapchat, pre-TikTok era. The book received international praise from the BBC to the Sydney Morning Herald. The New York Times said, “Eler’s book alights on the source of the selfie’s power . . . perhaps our much-fussed-over narcissism is not a flaw but a survival tactic.”
Alicia’s collaborative essay “How to Win Tinder” for The New Inquiry is a key source for studies of dating app culture, quoted in Le Monde, GQ Spain, and the New Yorker. She was featured in GO Magazine’s “100 Women We Love: Class of 2019.” The Daily Dot named her one of the 15 funniest ladies on Twitter, and the Chicago Sun-Times called her an emerging writer to know.
Alicia also does standup comedy under the name Alicia Kismet. The Sahan Journal named one of 5 diverse comedians to watch, and Minnesota Comedy wrote a feature story about Alicia’s journey as a queer, non-binary, Turkish comedian. Alicia also hosts and co-produces a unique art-comedy show called Laugh & Draw, where artists figure draw live standup comedians as they tell jokes and hold poses. Minnesota Comedy wrote about that, too! To learn more about Alicia’s comedy journey, which began in Chicago and has traveled with her to L.A. and now Minneapolis, go to aliciakismetcomedy.com.
Alicia is based in Minneapolis, has two amazing cats, loves simit (Turkish bagel) and hates gefilte fish.
Contact her at alicia [dot] eler [at] gmail [dot] com. Find her on Twitter (@aliciaeler) and Instagram (@aliciakismeteler).