Featured Interview With T. L. Cooper
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up on a farm in a small town in Kentucky where I often imagined traveling to the places in the books I read.
I studied Corrections & Juvenile Services as well as Psychology at Eastern Kentucky University because I have an insatiable need to understand why people do the things they do.
I’ve traveled to many places in the world and am always fascinated by both the similarities and the differences I discover while talking to people. I love seeing the places I’ve read about come to life and seeing how accurate my imagination created them from the words I read.
I continue to explore the motivation behind people’s behavior both in the things I choose to read and the things I write.
I have published 5 books of poetry, 2 collections of short stories, and a novel.
I currently live in Albany, Oregon.
I have three cats who love to keep me company while I write, especially when they want me to stop writing to play with them or feed them.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
According to my parents, I loved books from infancy, and I have to take their word for it because I don’t remember ever not being fascinated with books. My Mom says she started reading to me before I could even speak.
I started telling stories to save a groundhog that lived in my Dad’s barn. When my Grandpa said he’d come down and shoot it, I’d come up with reasons he couldn’t Grandpa encouraged me to flesh out those reasons into full stories to entertain friends and family. I grew to love telling those stories, and truth be told the attention it garnered me from Grandpa.
I started to write stories as soon as I could write sentences. I love the act of writing as much as the act of storytelling. Watching the story reveal itself as I write brings me immense pleasure.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I read a multitude of authors because I like variety.
When reading fiction, I read a wide variety of genres because I like to be challenged. I also read try to read poetry every day. Right now, I’m drawn to nonfiction more than fiction as happens with me from time to time.
One of my earliest influences was S. E. Hinton. Her books captivated me in a way that made me seeing books differently than I had before. She wrote about what she wanted to write, and I found that inspiring. She wrote about teenagers in a way that felt relatable to me unlike many of the other books about teenagers I read. Her books reinforced the message telling stories about the groundhog on my grandpa’s knee had taught me; that words could make a difference, that fiction could touch hearts, that stories could provoke and create emotional connection thought as well as entertainment.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The last book I published was a book of short stories, Take a Chance & Other Stories of Starting Over, which explores beginnings and endings that lead to the decision whether or not to take a risk or stay the course. The stories in it were inspired by facing my own choices in life and watching other people make choices. Sometimes I would ponder “what if” about those choices, and often that pondering developed into a story.
In addition, I’m currently working on two books:
One is Democracy in Silhouette: Poems, a book of poetry exploring democracy, politics, governing, and issues that affect us all daily. I was inspired to write it by the political divisiveness that is so prevalent in the world.
The other is novel, tentatively titled Red, that explores the mental breakdown of Marissa, a woman who is found with the dead bodies of her family. As she struggles to regain her memories, her past unfolds to show what lead to the tragic night that her family died.
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