Jack Cooper

Jack Cooper is the best-selling author of his recently released memoir collection, "Pain Before the Rainbow," which has been nominated for the 2026 Stonewall Book Award and the 2026 Lambda Literary Award. The author's biomythographical writings are about life's painful experiences - intolerances, injustices, traumas, and the resulting tragedies. He learned long ago that the deep pain within you must be brought back to life to heal. Ehime Ora said to let it live in writing. Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in. If you can tell your story, you can appreciate how injury brings enlightenment and resurrects new relationships to reality. We view our bodies differently because of traumas. There is such strangeness in the aftermath of pain and, subsequently, in healing. We relieve ourselves of pain by reliving it through writing, or, at least, we should try to do that.

He has an MA from Union College in upstate New York, where he spends his time renovating properties with the love of his life and their Great Dane, Jack. His work has been published in the Flumes Literary Journal, Weasel Press, Limit Experience Journal, Coffee People Zine, Miracle Monocle, Plentitudes Journal, Prometheus Dreaming, Two Sisters Writing & Publishing, Pride and Presents, Red Noise Collective, Running Wild Press Short Story Anthology, Wingless Dreamers Publication, Wild Sounds Writing Festival, Beyond Words, Beyond Queer Words, Oddball Magazine, New Plains Review, Quillkeepers Press, and RIZE Short Story Anthology.