Elizabeth Cohen
author, poet, activist, writing coach
Writer, editor, journalist, mama, and dog guardian Elizabeth Cohen hails from New Mexico. New stories can be read in The Coachella Review, Spotlong Review, Cagibi, Minyan Magazine, Confetti, Persimmon Tree, and other literary venues. Her poems have been recently published in Blue Mesa, San Antonio Review, A Room of Her Own; Crosswinds, Yale Review, and anthologies such as Love in the Original Language, Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975; Ink; Sonia Sanchez at 90; and the forthcoming Climate Change Chronicles. She is the author of five books of poetry, a celebrated memoir, a book of short stories, and a co-authored book of essays with Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord, the first Navajo woman surgeon. Her newest book of poems, Mermaids of Albuquerque, drops this November!
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She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia and recently retired from her position as an associate professor of English from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh to work on her writing and as a full-time writing coach with her boutique coaching business, BookMagick (www.bookcoachmagick.com).
She serves on the editorial board of Mnemosyne, a boutique publisher of memoirs by women, an imprint of Saint Julian Press, in Houston, Texas; on the board and as an editor for High Desert Haint, a Santa Fe publisher, and served on the board of the North Star Museum of the Underground Railroad, among other associations. She edits and runs the online magazine Memoirabilia (coming soon!).
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She loves books and writing them. She loves a tough freelance journalism assignment she can dig into. She likes to draw, although she is pretty bad at it. She loves to go to far flung places and then write about them.
She stands for things. A peace advocate, she stands for fair pay, equal rights, reproductive rights, queer and trans rights, diversity, feminism, preserving the natural places of the planet, protecting the animals.
She volunteers at Barrett House, a women's shelter in Albuquerque where she runs writing workshops. She works with special needs children in the Albuquerque Public Schools.
She loves kids, dogs, and horses. She loves toast.
That about covers it.
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Former Editor of Saranac Review
Visiting Professor WCSU
MFA Mentor, WCSU
SUNY Plattsburgh Associate Professor
Gotham Writers Workshops Instructor
Book Reviewer (American Book Review, @theinkwell)
MacDowell Fellow
Columbia University MFA
UNM BA, Magna Cum Laude,
Oprah Magazine Book-of-the-Week
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2021
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books
poetry
2022
2024 (forthcoming)
Impossible Furniture
Nightshade Press
ISBN-10: 1879205432
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Co-Winner of 2017
BEST POETRY BOOK,
Adirondack Center for Writing
The Patron Saint of
Cauliflower
New Poems
SAINT JULIAN PRESS
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Bird Light,
New and Selected Poems
SAINT JULIAN PRESS
SBN-978-0-9965231-9-6
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The Economist's Daughter
EXCITED UTTERENCE PRESS
ASIN: B004M18VPY
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What the Trees Said
SPLIT OAK PRESS
ISBN: : 9780984186747
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fiction/nonfiction
The Hypothetical Girl: Stories
Penguin/Random House
ISBN-13: 978-1590515822
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"With desperation or ambivalence, obsession or just plain hope, Cohen’s characters navigate the mysterious etiquette of digital-age romance.... explores what we think about when we anticipate love." —Publishers Weekly
"A daring biopsy of what is rapidly becoming the dominant romantic conundrum; love between absolute strangers." —Los Angeles Review
"...about the state of modern romance, but it's also about our timeless fascination with identity—a weighty subject that Cohen handles with intelligence and a dash of much-needed whimsical comedy.." -Oprah Magazine
The Family on Beartown Road: A Memoir of Love and Courage
RANDOM HOUSE​
ISBN-10: 0812966635
ISBN-13: 978-0812966633
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
“Frank, funny...courageous.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The adventure and peril of everyday living captured in language that’s light, beautiful, and razor-sharp.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Scalpel and The Silver Bear
BANTAM
ISBN-10: 0553378007
ISBN-13: 978-0553378009
"If you're in the market for a captivating autobiography, look no further."—South Carolina Herald
"Sheer pleasure to read from the very first page... Absorbing."—Booklist
"Movingly details her quest to unify two cultures and two healing traditions."
—The Dallas Morning News