Biography

Julia Cohen is an editor at Essay Press. She's the author of one collection of lyric essays, I Was Not Born (Noemi Press, 2014), which was recently translated into German and released by Literaturverlag Droschl. She’s also written two books of poetry, Collateral Light (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2014) and Triggermoon Triggermoon (BLP, 2011). Her nonfiction and poetry appear in issues of Juked, Jellyfish Review, Heavy Feather Review, The Rumpus, Entropy, Boston Review, and BOMB. She's currently working on a new collection of essays, Freak Lip.

Julia Cohen has a BA from Wesleyan University, an MFA from The New School, and a PhD from the University of Denver.  She’s an Assistant Professor of English and Literature at Wright College.  She teaches creative writing and literature courses. She’s an activist for public higher education.

Her heart is a fainting couch—it will catch you if you fall.

Contact her at: or find her on Twitter @JuliaACohen.

Books

Press

Awards

• 2019 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest Winner

Further Reading

Recently Published Work

• Jellyfish Review: (experimental essay) “In 2019 You Can’t Slap My Face With My Face”

• The Matador Review: (poem) “When I Kissed a Young Branch with My Eye”

• Heavy Feather Review: (poems) “Passover Lullaby for Elijah April 19th 2019 / Elegy for Chabad of Poway Synagogue April 27 2019”  and “A Love Poem When the Government Conspires Against Us”

• Juked: (micro-nonfiction) “The Heart Is Not a Metaphor When It Leaks”

• The Rumpus: (nonfiction) "Inappropriate Shock"

• Deluge Magazine: "The Wait Inside My Head Is Cold" and "Not Grounded Not Dead"

• Gramma Daily: "We Could Have Gone On Forever" "Other Days" "I Am No Lady" and "You're the Worst Person to Fight With"

• Queen Mob's Tea House: Danish translations of Theis Orntoft's "Once the dictator was a man..." "In a dream the streets brim with insects" "My morning in the upper strata of geology"

• Prelude Magazine: Danish translations of "The sun lights up beautiful aliens" "Raining in the garden when I woke up"

• The Atlas Review: Danish translations of Theis Orntoft's "The tap water tastes of chlorine"

• Words without Borders: Danish translations of Theis Orntoft's "Let's say I download something in the black night"

• Sixfinch: Danish translations of Theis Orntoft's "The history of the world"

• The Fanzine: Danish translations of Theis Orntoft's "A drone's shadow across the geography" "Dreamt I walked out of the solar system" "Salt in the air" "Sitting in the chalky light listening to black metal"

• Entropy Magazine: (nonfiction) "A Year to the Day: On Coltrane's A Love Supreme"

• The Destroyer: from "The Ache the Ache"

• Academy of American Poetry: "We crush apples in the dark" 

• Boston Review: from "The Ache the Ache"

• Poetry Society of America: "Call me a Grownup but my Five Eyes Blink at Once"

• BOMB Magazine: from "The Ache the Ache"