of fiction, twenty ways to artistically misbehave as a fiction writer, workshop philosophy and practice, and point-of-view strategies. The essays in the second section, "Forms of Fiction," examine ways of conceptualizing form in narrative writing and include notable essays on secrecy plots ("The Secret Story"), narrative strategy and dramatic design, stories as love songs ("Every Story Is a Love Song"), and the form that most of Cook's own books have taken--short story cycles, linked stories, and novels-in-stories. The final section, "Under the Influence," investigates both literary and nonliterary influences and includes ambitious essays that combine memoir with literary criticism, especially essays on the late Larry McMurtry (fellow Texan writer who Cook wrote his master's thesis in literature about) and Sena Jeter Naslund (the bestselling author of Ahab's Wife and founding director of Spalding University's low-residency MFA in Writing Program, where Cook has been a member of the graduate faculty since 2004). The final and most personal essay, "My Hamlet," tracks Cook's intimate thirty-five year relationship with Shakespeare's play--as a student, actor, English professor, writer, son, father, brother, and heart-attack survivor. Journal and anthology publications Cook has published essays, poetry, reviews, and other stories in such journals and magazines as Glimmer Train, One Story, Prairie Schooner, The Threepenny Review, Poets & Writers, Writer's Chronicle, American Short Fiction, Harvard Review, Shenandoah, and The Louisville Review and contributed to several anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories 2012, Teachable Moments: Essays on Experiential Education (2006), Now Write: Fiction Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers (2006) and When I Was a Loser: Essays on (Barely) Surviving High School (2007). Additional honors Cook is the recipient of an Arizona Commission on the Arts fellowship for fiction, several Pushcart Prize nominations, and artist colony fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross, and Blue Mountain Center. Personal Cook was born in Dumas, Texas. He is married to the playwright and poet, Charissa Menefee, who is a professor of English and Theatre at Iowa State University. They have four children and live in Ames, Iowa. Teaching Since 2013, he has taught at Iowa State University, where he currently co-directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment. In 2021, he received a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching from ISU and was named the Dean's Faculty Fellow in the Arts. From 1992-2013, he taught creative writing and literature at Prescott College in