Research Interests

Literary and speculative fiction, lyric nonfiction, autocosmology, consciousness studies, and interdisciplinary arts.

Biography

Carolyn Cooke is a Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts (MFA) at CIIS. She is the author of the novel, Daughters of the Revolution, and two collections of short stories, The Bostons and Amor and Psycho. Projects for the screen include storylining and writing episodes of Die Testament, which aired on Netwerk 24 in South Africa, and Fire City, a proposed series for television. Winner of the PEN/Robert Bingham Award and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, she has also received fellowships from the Breadloaf Writers Conference, the Djerassi Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ucross Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in AGNI, Best American Short Stories, The Gettysburg Review, The Idaho Review, The Nation, New California Writing, New England Review, O. Henry Prize Stories, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Education

MFA, Columbia University, 1986

B.A., Smith College, 1980

Awards & Distinctions

• PEN/Bingham Award 
• National Endowment for the Arts Grantee
• The Story Prize, Finalist
• Publishers Weekly Best 20 Books of 2013

• Named one of San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Recommended Books of 2013
• Shortlisted, The Story Prize, 2014
• New Yorker Reviewers' Favorites, "A Year in Reading," December 19, 2011
• San Francisco Chronicle "Top Ten Books of 2011", December 23, 2011
• Short List, Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, Best Debut Novel, 2011
• Top Feminist Book Pick, National Organization for Women, New York City Chapter, 2011
• PEN/Hemingway Award, Runner-up
• PEN/ L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Finalist
• New York Times Notable Book of 2001

• Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year, 2001


Publications

Suffer Better (forthcoming novel)

Amor & Psycho (short stories)

Daughters of the Revolution (novel)

The Bostons (short stories)

Selected Interviews & Media

The Rumpus Interview with Carolyn Cooke, TheRumpus.net

KQED's "Forum" with Michael Krasny, San Francisco, California, September 24, 2013

Interview with Publishers Weekly for Amor and Psycho, July 2013

Selected Reviews

Amor and Psycho, SF Gate 

Daughters of the Revolution, SF Gate (front page) 

The Bostons, The New York Times, June 26, 2001