About Christopher Coake
Christopher Coake - Quick Facts
- Favorite Activity (not related to writing): playing guitar, photography, and teaching.
- Favorite place to go when thinking through a plot issue or book idea: A walk in the desert.
- Favorite Author: Alice Munro
- Favorite Books: Any Munro story collection; Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried; Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
- Favorite Movie: The Sweet Hereafter (Director: Atom Egoyan)
- Favorite Pastime: Collecting typewriters and fountain pens.
- Favorite Speech and Why: Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance speech. It’s earnest and may be overblown, but so is “Eye of the Tiger.”
- What do you most like about being an author: I find endless fascination in trying to make the hardest things to say, thrilling to read.
Interesting Highlights
Do you teach on a specific topic?
Yes: creative writing.
What specialized skills or knowledge do you have?
I love to teach writers working in both “literary” and genre writing.
Associations
- Boards: The University of Nevada Press Editorial Advisory Board
- Universities: The University of Nevada, Reno. (Grad of the MFA program at Ohio State and the MA program in creative writing at Miami U of Ohio). Also attended Ball State University as an undergrad, with a degree in teaching secondary education (English).
- Teaching: Associate Professor and MFA Program Director at U of Nevada, Reno. I also direct the UNR Summer Youth Writing Program for local high school students.
Other Books
- We’re in Trouble: Stories (Harcourt, 2005)
- You Came Back (Grand Central, 2012).
- I’ve been translated into Italian, French, and German.
Books Made Into Movies
You Came Back: An Italian-language feature-length adaptation, Sei Tornato, is currently in production in Italy, for release in 2020.
Awards
- The PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship in 2006.
- Named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007.
- My short story “All Through the House” was anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2004 and The Best American Noir of the Century, both by Houghton Mifflin.
- “Getaway,” from You Would Have Told Me Not To, was a Distinguished Story in Best American Short Stories 2019.
Current Project
A strange fantasy novel that is equal parts H.P. Lovecraft, N. K. Jemisin, and Italo Calvino.
Website & Social Media
Twitter: @chriscoake
Facebook: @AuthorChristopherCoake