Josh Cook received an MA in English from Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis in 2009 and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University in 2021. While earning the former degree, he found work in the Medicaid Waiver program, where he served individuals with developmental disabilities for more than a decade, first as a support staff, then as a program manager, and finally as a case manager. His experiences in these positions inspired the writing of Another Crescent Moon, one chapter of which functioned as his MFA thesis. He has presented original scholarship on Shakespeare and F.R. Leavis at research conferences, and his short fiction has appeared in journals including Across the Margin, Fiction Kitchen Berlin, Idle Ink, Dissonance Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and Sage Cigarettes.

 

He also teaches college-level writing. It has been his great pleasure to demystify the writing process for anxious students and to see their confidence in themselves and in their own voices grow. In August 2023, he will begin teaching at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, where he will live with his wife and two dogs.

 

His hobbies include reading philosophy and history, and his heroes are Kurt Vonnegut, Franz Kafka, Malala Yousufzai, and Socrates.