Discussing author Desiree Cooper’s Know the Mother

Know the Mother is an exploration race, gender and class through layered, complex storytelling. Author Desiree Cooper’s collection of flash fiction—which often walks the line between poetry and prose—is a searing interrogation of the mother archetype. In her interactive reading, Cooper will challenge the audience to explore sexism as it is lived. Cooper is a former attorney and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist whose fiction and poetry have appeared in Callaloo, Detroit Noir, Best African American Fiction 2010 and Tidal Basin Review, among other online and print publications. A 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, Cooper was a founding board member of Cave Canem, a national residency for emerging black poets. She is currently a Kimbilio Fellow, a national residency for African American fiction writers.