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Ellen Cooney

Goodreads Author

Born

in Clinton, Massachusetts, The United States

Website

http://www.ellencooney.com

Genre

Literature & Fiction

Member Since

June 2008

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Ellen Cooney is the author of eleven novels, most recently A Cowardly Woman No More (Coffee House Press, April, 2023). Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Fiction, New England Review, and many other journals. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Born in Clinton, Massachusetts in 1952, she lived for many years in Cambridge, and taught writing classes and workshops at Boston College, Northeastern University, MIT, Harvard Extension School, and the Seminars at Radcliffe. She lives in Phippsburg, Maine.

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Ellen Cooney "The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances" first came to me literally like a cartoon of a lightbulb suddenly self-illuminating over my…more"The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances" first came to me literally like a cartoon of a lightbulb suddenly self-illuminating over my head, as I was sitting one day with my adopted rescued dog, Skip, in my lap, patting him and telling him I wasn't ever going to give up on loving him and believing in him, even though he was so screwed up due to his past, and so difficult to teach (and so difficult to "civilize," for he was pretty much feral when he came to me). I knew I wanted to write about teaching and learning and love and keeping one's eyes on the future. How I'd go about it took a while, but once I was in it, I really went with it.(less)

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How do you deal with writer’s block?

Ellen Cooney I'm not sure there's even such a thing as writer's block. If I'm in a stretch where something I'm working on isn't coming out right, or if it's not co…moreI'm not sure there's even such a thing as writer's block. If I'm in a stretch where something I'm working on isn't coming out right, or if it's not coming at all, it's because something is wrong with the "thing." Maybe I was trying to force a character or a plot toward some development that's all wrong, or maybe I was skimming a surface of something that needed more depth and feeling. Or maybe I was tired and needed to rest, and what could have been defined as a block was actually like, well, writing is like tides, and for me, low tide is presently here. (You just have to believe the tide will change,because that's what tides do.)(less)

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Ellen Cooney’s books

Average rating: 3.26 · 4,596 ratings · 865 reviews · 16 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances 3.31 avg rating — 2,402 ratings — published 2014 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	One Night Two Souls Went Walking 3.41 avg rating — 1,022 ratings — published 2020 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies 2.80 avg rating — 678 ratings — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thanksgiving 3.66 avg rating — 210 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Cowardly Woman No More 3.10 avg rating — 133 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lambrusco 3.09 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 2008 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Old Ballerina 3.38 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 1999 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White Palazzo 2.79 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2002	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gun Ball Hill 4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2004 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Small-Town Girl 3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1983 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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“She was healthy & thriving, like a weed: a weed with no interest in trying to become, say, a proper flower.”
― Ellen Cooney, A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

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“People are so sad,” she said.
“People are so hurt,” she said.
“So please let us not be empty like empty barrels,” she said.
All along, the ceiling light kept doing its thing. And together with Professor Pearls, we answered her, as if this had been planned, “Amen.”
― Ellen Cooney, One Night Two Souls Went Walking

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“In stacks of the library where I wandered, where almost no one went, where everything was old and a little beat-up, a ray of sunlight came in, filled with swirling bits of dust, when nothing else was moving, and I saw it wasn’t dust but particles of the spirits of those books, free and out playing around, like no one was watching. Moments. They were moments. They belonged to the other thing and they could never be broken, as you can break a clock, but not time.”
― Ellen Cooney, One Night Two Souls Went Walking

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