Carolyn Jess-Cooke (born 26 August 1978 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a poet and novelist from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Carolyn Jess-Cooke was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1978. She was educated at The Queen's University of Belfast, where she received a BA (Hons), MA, and PhD by the age of 25. At 26 she took up a lectureship in film studies at the University of Sunderland, where she established herself as a film theorist, publishing numerous articles and books and receiving a reference in Who's Who in Research: Film. [1] She took up a senior lectureship in Creative Writing at the University of Northumbria in 2009 but tendered her resignation to write full-time in January 2011, and is currently Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. She has four children and lives outside Glasgow. [2] Prominent themes in Jess-Cooke's work include trauma, motherhood, and feminism. [3]
Jess-Cooke now publishes her fiction as CJ Cooke. She is the author of bestselling gothic novels, The Nesting (2020), which was published in 2021 in the UK and Commonwealth by HarperCollins, The Lighthouse Witches, which was nominated for ITW Thriller Awards and an Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America, and optioned for a TV series by StudioCanal, and The Ghost Woods (2022), which was an Indigo Book of the Year 2022. Jess-Cooke regularly visits the place where she sets her books to carry out fieldwork and interviews.
Jess-Cooke's poetry has also appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry New Zealand, Poetry Ireland Review, The Wolf, Magma, Poetry Wales, The Lonely Poets' Guide to Belfast, Black Mountain Review, Ambit, Tower Poetry, The SHOp, and in a ribbon of steel that runs for half a mile throughout the Roseberry Park mental health hospital in Middlesbrough. [4] Her debut poetry collection, Inroads, received an Eric Gregory Award, the Northern Promise Award, the Tyrone Guthrie Prize for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the New London Poetry Award in 2010.
In 2020, Jess-Cooke set up a virtual literary festival, The Stay-at-Home Literary Festival, which featured hundreds of writers, attracted audiences of over 15,000 and ran for two weeks throughout the pandemic.
Jess-Cooke is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow where she leads research in the field of creative writing interventions for mental illness.
Fiction
Poetry
Non-Fiction
Bernard MacLaverty is an Irish fiction writer and novelist. His novels include Cal and Grace Notes. He has written five books of short stories.
Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work.
Caitríona O'Reilly is an Irish poet and critic.
Nicholas Laird is a Northern Irish novelist and poet.
Sheenagh Pugh is a British poet, novelist and translator who writes in English. Her book, Stonelight (1999) won the Wales Book of the Year award.
Christopher Meredith is a poet, novelist, short story writer, and translator from Tredegar, Wales.
Tishani Doshi is an Indian poet, journalist and dancer based in Chennai. In 2006 she won the Forward Prize for her debut poetry book Countries of the Body. Her poetry book A God at the Door has been shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize under best poetry collection category.
Kate Long is an English author. She is perhaps best known for the number one bestselling novel The Bad Mother's Handbook. She lives in Whitchurch in Shropshire..
Raman Mundair is a British poet, writer, artist and playwright. She was born in Ludhiana, India and moved to live in the UK at the age of five. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, A Choreographer's Cartography and Lovers, Liars, Conjurers and Thieves – both published by Peepal Tree Press – and The Algebra of Freedom published by Aurora Metro Press. She edited Incoming – Some Shetland Voices – published by Shetland Heritage Publications. Mundair was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and has performed readings of her work at numerous venues Raman's work has been anthologised and received reviews in publications including The Independent, The Herald, World Literature Today and Discovering Scottish.
Anne Teresa Enright is an Irish writer. She has published seven novels, many short stories and a non-fiction work called Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, about the birth of her two children. Her writing explores themes such as family, love, identity and motherhood.
Graham Mort is a British writer, editor and tutor, who "is acknowledged as one of contemporary verse's most accomplished practitioners". He is the author of ten volumes of poetry and two volumes of short fiction and has written radio drama for BBC Radio 4, and won both the Bridport Prize and the Edge Hill Prize for short fiction.
Fiona Ruth Sampson, is a British poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing.
Carrie Etter is an American poet.
Carol Rumens FRSL is a British poet.
Kathryn Simmonds is a British poet, and short story writer.
Ellen Bass is an American poet and co-author of The Courage to Heal.
Owen O'Neill is a Northern Irish writer, actor, director, and comedian.
Kris Haddow is a Scottish playwright, poet and performer, originally from Kirkconnel in Dumfries and Galloway.
Mary O'Donnell is an Irish novelist and poet, a journalist, broadcaster and teacher.
Maura Dooley is a British poet and writer. She has published five collections of poetry and edited several anthologies. She is the winner of the Eric Gregory Award in 1987 and the Cholmondeley Award in 2016, and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize in 1997 and again in 2015. Her poetry collections Life Under Water (2008) and Kissing A Bone (1996) were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.