Christopher Cook

Christopher Cook is the author of many short stories and two award-winning fiction books, "Robbers" and "Screen Door Jesus & Other Stories". A native of Texas, since 1994 he has lived in France, the Czech Republic, and Mexico. His books are available in numerous foreign editions, and his stories have been included in many anthologies, including Houghton Mifflin's "The Best American Mystery Stories 2003". His memoir essay "Full Moon Over Bohemia," set in the Czech Republic, was selected for The Best Travel Writing anthology in 2006. His novel "Robbers" has been in a continual state of "film option" since its publication, in consideration for both feature films and a TV series. Cook grew up in East Texas along the Texas-Louisiana border where the southern forests meet the Gulf Coast bayous and swamplands, in a small blue collar town dominated by oil refineries and petrochemical plants. The culture there is southern, part of the Deep South rather than the west so many associate with Texas. Cook's immediate family were working-class charismatic Pentecostals--Holy Ghost tongue speakers--and held fundamentalist Christian views not only on religion, but also on race and social issues. He viewed education as an escape from that insular culture. He studied pre-medicine and psychology at university--paying for his education by working in a wide range of part-time and temporary jobs, including work as a carpenter, dishwasher, railroad laborer, lab technician, taxi driver, and nursing home orderly. After university, he worked as a psychotherapist, newspaper and magazine journalist, and trade union and human rights activist in the USA and overseas. He began writing fiction in the mid-1990s while living in Paris. As of spring 2011, he was living in the Czech Republic and Mexico.