T Cooper will read at UT’s Writers in the Library, Monday, March 11th at 7 p.m. in the John C. Hodges Library auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

T Cooper is the author of three novels, including The Beaufort Diaries and Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes. His most recent book is Real Man Adventures, a chronicle of the writer’s transsexual journey presented through a collage of letters, essays, interviews, artwork, and conversations exploring what it means to be a man. T Cooper maintains a sense of humor as he takes us through his transition into identifying as male — even publishing the letter he wrote to his parents to inform them that he “wasn’t their daughter anymore.” It’s a brash, wildly inventive, and comic exploration of the paradoxes and pleasures of masculinity.

Cooper is also the editor of an anthology of original stories entitled A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing). T’s work has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Believer, One Story, Electric Literature, and others.

T has adapted and produced a short film based on his graphic novel The Beaufort Diaries. The animated short, directed by the book’s illustrator Alex Petrowsky and starring actor David Duchovny, was an official selection at several film festivals, including Tribeca Film Festival, South By Southwest, the New Orleans Film Fest, the Worldwide Short Film Festival, and the Anchorage International Film Festival.

T Cooper was born and raised in Los Angeles, attended Middlebury College in Vermont, and taught high school in New Orleans before settling in New York City in 1996. He earned an MFA from Columbia University. T enjoys vintage airplanes, M*A*S*H, the great outdoors, world peace, and anything to do with pit bull advocacy. He lives with his family in New York and in the South.

The author will also hold a Q&A session for all interested students, 2-3 p.m., Monday, March 11, in 1210 McClung Tower.

T Cooper’s reading is co-sponsored by UT’s Lambda Student Union.

Read a review of Real Man Adventures at Chapter 16: a community of Tennessee writers, readers and passersby (brought to you by Humanities Tennessee).
__

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the UT Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Christopher Hebert, Writer-in-Residence, UT Libraries (chebert3@utk.edu).

Follow us at:
www.facebook.com/Writers.in.the.Library
twitter.com/utklibwriters