Faculty Profiles

Background & Experience

Selected Publications (Return to top)

Books

• Love Songs for the Quarantined: Stories. Willow Springs Editions, 2011.  Winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. 
• The Girl from Charnelle: Novel. William Morrow, 2006. Harper Perennial Paperback, 2007.  Also evailable as an e-book. Winner of the Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction. 
• Last Call: Stories. University of Nebraska Press, 2004.  Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. 

Short Stories

• "Filament" (Reprint)." Best American Mystery Stories 2012.  
• "Reasons of the Heart." Prairie Schooner. Summer 2011.
• "Love Song for the Quarantined." The Louisville Review. Spring 2011.
• "Filament." One Story. March 26, 2011.
• "Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard." Glimmer Train. Winter 2010. Reprinted in Best of the West 2011: Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri. Eds. James Thomas and D. Seth Horton. University of Texas Press, 2011.
• "Wedding Photograph, June 1963." Wrong Tree Review. Winter 2010.
• "Noise." Wrong Tree Review. Winter 2010.
• "On the Strip." Wrong Tree Review. Winter 2010.
• "The Man Who Fell From the Sky." Glimmer Train. Winter 2008.
• "Bad Weather." 94 Creations. Winter 2008.
• “The Couple Upstairs.” Arts & Letters. Fall 2005.
• "Chalkdust on a Dress." Arts & Letters. Fall 2005.
• "First Birth." Arts & Letters. Fall 2005.
• "Gone." Santa Fe Writers Project. June 2003.
• "Easter Weekend." Post Road. Fall 2002.
• “Strange Waters.” Amarillo Bay. February 2002
• "Nature's Way." Witness. Winter 2001.
• "Orchestration." Harvard Review. Fall 1999.
• “White Sheets.” Potpourri. Spring 1997.
• "Spent." Valley Guide Quarterly. Summer 1996.
• "Costa Rica." The Threepenny Review. Spring 1995.
• "Penance." American Short Fiction. Spring 1995.
• "Pool Boy." Writer's Forum. Fall 1994.
• "Knock Down, Drag Out." Shenandoah. Summer 1994.
• "Marty." Colorado Review. Spring 1994.
• "Last Call." Puerto del Sol. Summer 1993.
• "Texas Moon." Denver Quarterly. Winter 1992.

Essays/Criticism/Poetry

• "The Pleasures of Form."  In Glimmer Train Bulletin. October 2011. 
• "On Writing Love Songs for the Quarantined."  Spalding University MFA Faculty Blogspot. September 2011. 
• "Narrative Strategy and Dramatic Design." The Writer's Chronicle. May 2010.
• "Blind." Brevity: Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. Fall 2008.
• "A Nova, an Eyelash, a Snoring Man: Notes on Adolescent Summers." When I Was a Loser: Essays on (Barely) Surviving High School. Ed. John McNally. Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2007.
• "The Story Behind the Novel." The Girl from Charnelle. Harper Perennial, 2007.
• "A Family Theme, A Family Secret." Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers. Ed. Sherry Ellis. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. Reprinted in "Writer's Ask" column of Glimmer Train.
• "Landscapes and Lichens: Deb Ford's Common Ground/Symbiotic Equivalence." Exhibition Essay. Ucross Art Gallery. Fall 2006.
• "Every Student is an Honor's Student: Advising at Prescott College." Teachable Moments: Essays on Experiential Education. Ed. R. Dean Johnson. University Press of America, 2006.
• "Interdisciplinary Team-Teaching: Family Systems in Film and Literature." With Wayne Regina. Teachable Moments: Essays on Experiential Education. Ed. R. Dean Johnson. University Press of America, 2006.
• "On the Road: The Do-It-Yourself Book Tour." Poets & Writers. Nov/Dec 2005.
• "Footnotes." Shenandoah. Summer 2002.
• "Tableau." Alligator Juniper. 2002.
• "Mother Rejects Her Lover." New Laurel Review. 1999.
• "Love Song from the Monterrey Aquarium Spawn Shop." South Dakota Review. Spring 1999.
• "When Our Son Died of Leukemia." South Dakota Review. Spring 1999.
• "Ancient Magic." South Dakota Review. Spring 1999.

Interviews

• 2012 Interview, Writing the American West: http://multi-interviews.com/western/?p=29
• 2012 podcast interview: http://anangelsshareblog.com/2012/07/18/new-podcast-with-terry-and-carolyn-interview-with-author-k-l-cook/
• One Story Interview. About "Filament." One Story. March 2011.
• "K. L. Cook: Writer and Teacher." Glimmer Train. Winter 2010.
• "A Conversation with K. L. Cook." The Girl from Charnelle. Harper Perennial, 2007.

Presentations (Return to top)

Kenny has given lectures, talks, panel presentations, and readings at various local, regional, and national conferences, book festivals, and literary seminars, inculding the AWP National Conference, Texas Book Festival, Hassayampa Creative Writing Institute, Texas Library Association, Southwest Writers Series, Professional Writers of Prescott, and Gemini Ink.

Research (Return to top)

In addition to research related to the courses he teaches, Kenny's primary areas of research focus on subjects related to the stories, essays, and books he's writing. So his research at the moment concerns narrative strategy and dramatic design, methods of artistic misbehavior, secrecy, revelation, and reckoning as plot, gift economies, short story cycle theory, criminal life in the American Southwest in the 1930s and 40s, Shakespearean acting and film adaptation, repertory theatre companies, Las Vegas circa 1980, political documents as literary texts, welding technique and hazards, whooping cough, and literary environments.

Awards, Grants, & Honors (Return to top)

Book Awards

• 2012 Longlist Finalist, The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, for Love Songs for the Quarantined
• 2010 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, for Love Songs for the Quarantined
• 2007 Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction, for The Girl from Charnelle
• 2006 Southwest Book of the Year, for The Girl from Charnelle
• 2006 Editor's Choice Selection, Historical Novel Society, for The Girl from Charnelle
• 2006 Best Books of the Year Selection, Gulf Coast Live/Mississippi Press, for The Girl from Charnelle
• 2006 Best Adult Book for High School Students, School Library Journal, for The Girl from Charnelle
• 2003 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, for Last Call

Other Awards

• Best American Mystery Stories 2012, "Filament"
• 2011 Pushcart Prize Nomination, "Love Song for the Quarantined"
• Best of the West 2011: Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, "Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard"
• Distinguished Story, 2010 Best American Short Stories, "Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard"
• Spur Award 2011, Best Short Story, Western Writers of America, "Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard"
• 2010 Arts & Letters Live Selection, Texas Bound Performance, Dallas Art Museum, "Breaking Glass"
• 2008 Arts & Letters Live Selection, Texas Bound Performance, Dallas Art Museum, "Costa Rica"
• 2003 Grand Prize, Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Arts Series, "Last Call: The Texas Moon Stories"
• 2008 Pushcart Prize Nomination, "The Man Who Fell From the Sky"
• 2005 Pushcart Prize Nomination, "The Couple Upstairs"
• 2001 Pushcart Prize Nomination, "Nature's Way"
• e2ink-2: The Best of the On-line Journals, “Strange Waters”
• Literary Arts Award, City of Charleston, "Texas Moon"

Fellowships/Grants

• Arizona Commission on the Arts Research & Development Grant
• Arizona Commission on the Arts Fiction Fellowship
• MacDowell Colony Residency Fellowships (2)
• Yaddo Residency Fellowships (2)
• Blue Mountain Center Residency Fellowships (3)
• Ucross Foundation Residency Fellowship
• Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship
• Millay Center for the Arts Residency Fellowship
• Sewanee Writers' Conference, Tennessee Williams Scholar

Advisory Boards/Judging/Association Membership (Recent)

• Advisory Board, Prairie Schooner Book Prizes
• Judge, 2009-2011, Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
• Member, AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs)

Education (Return to top)

• M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College
• M.A. in English, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
• B.A. in English and Theatre, West Texas State University

Expertise (Return to top)

• Fiction Writing (Sudden Fiction, Short Stories, Novellas, Short Story Cycles, and Novels)
• Nonfiction Writing (Personal Essays, Memoir, Literary Criticism and Theory, Book & Film Reviewing, Travel Writing)
• Shakespeare
• Classic, Modern, and Postmodern Fiction
• American & British Literature
• American West--History, Literature, Film
• Dramatic Literature
• Film & Literature
• Interdisciplinary Arts & Letters
• Literary Theory and Criticism

Coverage in News & Media (Return to top)

RECENT COVERAGE (Available on Internet)

• Author Website. http://klcook.net/ 
• "The Next Big Thing."  Blog post about Love Songs for the Quarantined and upcoming projects. January 7, 2013. http://schuster.blog.com/
• "Foot Notes." 2012 Reprint of essay by Redux, an invitation-only literary journal that reprints authors favorite previously published essays, stories, and poems not currently available on the internet. http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2012/12/61-foot-notes-by-kl-cook.html
• Press Release.  Cook awarded 2013 Arizona Commission on the Arts, Research & Development Grant.  http://www.azarts.gov/news-resources/press/arts-commission-awards-artist-research-and-development-grants-to-7-arizona-artists/
• "Habits of Art."  Essay on artistic work habits, written for the MFA faculty blog for Spalding University's MFA in Writing Program: http://blog.spalding.edu/mfainwriting/2012/09/25/habits-of-art/
• "The Pleasures of Form."  Essay based on Cook's Forms of Fiction course, published in the Glimmer Train Bulletin, and selected for the year-end best.  http://www.glimmertrain.com/b57cook.html
• Feature Article.  In Prescott Daily Courier, November 7, 2012.  http://dcourier.com/m/Articles.aspx?ArticleID=112648
• More Interviews.  http://klcook.net/ata_interviews.html
• Reviews of Cook's Published Books.  http://klcook.net/library_reviews.html