Works by
T Cooper
(Writer)

T Cooper is the author of the novels Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes and Some of the Parts, as well as co-editor of an anthology of original stories entitled A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing).  His most recent book is a graphic novel entitled The Beaufort Diaries . T's work has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Believer, and Out, among many others. T was also publisher and editor of The Fish Tank 'zine, which was awarded a Firecracker Alternative Book Award in 1999. T has been awarded residencies to The MacDowell Colony, Ledig House International, and The Millay Colony (where he was The New York Times Foundation Fellow for 2008). T won the NewNowNext Award in 2008, and in 2004, he was a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, as well as Writer-in-Residence at The Bronx Academy of Letters. T was a visiting faculty member at Middlebury College during Winter Term 2009, and T's short story "Swimming" was one of "100 Distinguished Stories of 2007" in The Best American Short Stories 2008 (ed. Salman Rushdie).

• Anthologies

• Fiction

• Other

Anthologies

• A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing) (2006), Adam Mansbach and T Cooper, eds.
  History is distorted the moment it's recorded--and in these politically dishonest times, challenging the stories we're told is more important than ever. In this groundbreaking anthology of original fiction, a diverse group of America's best writers takes on the task of creating counter-narratives to mainstream American history. Here are some of the moments and the people left out of the textbooks. Here is what else happened--on the margins of American life, and in between the lines of our history books.
  
  A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing brings together an eclectic array of celebrated authors and cartoonists to create a patchwork, anecdotal history of this complicated country. From the Chinese discovery of America in 1426 to the new McCarthyism of a post-9-11 world, this collection recasts everything from the moon landing to the Lindbergh kidnapping, westward expansion to the sexual proclivities of Civil War officers. Riveting, inventive, and politically vital, this anthology picks up--and yanks on--America's supposed commitment to seeking the truth . . . even if that truth is revealed in fiction.
  
  With original stories and artwork by Adam Mansbach, Alexander Chee, Amy Bloom, Benjamin Weissman., Daniel Alarcon, Darin Strauss, David Rees, Felicia Luna Lemus, Kate Bornstein, Keith Knight, Neal Pollack, Paul La Farge, Ron Kovic, Sarah Schulman, T Cooper, Tommy O'Malley, and Valerie Miner

Fiction

• The Beaufort Diaries (July 6, 2010 release) with Alex Petrowsky, Illustrator
  Graphic novel.

• Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes (2006) -- Nominated 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction; Selection of the Borders Original Voices program
  In Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, author T Cooper chronicles the unusual history of the Lipshitz family, Jewish refugees who narrowly escape the bloody Russian pogroms of 1903. Upon landing at Ellis Island, Esther and Hersh Lipshitz lose their uncharacteristically blond-haired, blue-eyed son Reuven. Circumstances eventually force them to give up their fruitless search for Reuven and to join a relative living in the Texas panhandle. However, Esther never stops pondering the fate of her lost son, and when she sees a picture of the blond, blue-eyed Charles Lindbergh after his 1927 transatlantic flight, she becomes convinced that the aviator is her grown son Reuven. Esther’s obsession with Lindbergh (Reuven) slowly destroys those around her and will leave far-reaching effects on the entire Lipshitz family.
  
  In 2002 in New York City, we encounter the character T Cooper, the last living Lipshitz, who has received an unsolicited box from his estranged mother. In it, he finds clippings and letters to Charles Lindbergh and his family, all once carefully preserved by his great-grandmother Esther. When he is forced back to Texas to bury his suddenly and tragically deceased parents, T finds himself the inheritor of a family history filled with loose ends, factual errors, and maniacal behavior. An ex–literary golden boy who has quit writing to pursue a career as a bar mitzvah entertainer who impersonates the rapper Eminem, T struggles to make sense of all that came before him and—in light of his wife’s desire to have a baby—what legacy he might leave behind as well.

• Some of the Parts (2002) -- Finalist 2002 Lambda Literary Awards for Transgender, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection
  In sparse, evocative prose, T Cooper tells the story of four splintered lives: Isak is a "gender freak" to the world at large. Taylor is so simultaneously perfect, yet useless, that she is paralyzed. Her mother Arlene is lonely and pill-popping, while Arlene's brother Charlie faces the unexpected-even unwanted-prospect of being healthy with HIV. Fractured lives in various forms of exile eventually join to re-forge a definition of family from the ashes.

Other

• "Swimming" (2009)  -- One of the "100 Distinguished Stories of 2007" in The Best American Short Stories 2008, Heidi Pitlor and Salman Rushdie, eds.; also appeared in October 21, 2009 edition of New Yorker magazine (click here to read).

• Electric Literature: #1 (2009)
  Includes works by Diana Wagman, Jim Shepard, Lydia Millet, Michael Cunningham, and T Cooper ("The Time Machine")
  Electric Literature is just that, electric - five great stories that grab you. Our Summer 2009 debut anthology features the first published excerpt from Michael Cunningham's forthcoming novel. This issue also features new fiction by some of America's most innovative and important contemporary writers, including Jim Shepard, T Cooper, Lydia Millet, and Diana Wagman. These stories are charged with wit, incident, and emotional gravity right from the first sentence.

• T Cooper interviews Irma Thomas, The Soul Queen of New Orleans in The Believer (June/July '08 Music Issue) (2008)

• The Fish Tank, T Cooper and Lisa Zale, publishers -- Winner 1999 Firecracker Alternative Book Award