Kerry Cohen

Instructor Biography

M.F.A., author of 11 books including Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, Lush: A Memoir, Easy and Crazy for You: Breaking the Spell of Sex and Love Addiction. Ms. Cohen is also the editor of Spent, essays about women and shopping. She has been published in numerous journals and media, including The New York Times Modern Love column, Salon and Brevity. She has been an Oregon Book Award finalist five times and her young adult novels have won the Oregon Spirit Award and been a YALSA Popular Paperback and ALA Quick Pick.

Instructor Statement

I am most interested in helping emerging writers make sense of being alive. I teach craft not as something formulaic, but as crafting inside the larger narratives of society. Learning to write means also learning to be a writer. My teaching always includes some combination of studying a text, having vibrant discussion and writing prompts based on what was learned. I like to have an ongoing dialogue with students about their work, about writing in general and the writing life, with the intention of building a genuine mentoring connection. I value the intellectual and creative energy that comes alive when writers gather. That is so much of the joy of teaching creative writing and being a writer. We so often think of writing as a solitary act, but writing also needs engagement, discussion and connection. Writers need each other.