Bernard Cooper  (b. 1951) LINKS Bernard Cooper: Steve Barclay Agency http://www.barclayagency.com/cooper.html The Steve Barclay Agency highlights this O. Henry Award winning essayist by showcasing his biography and selections and reviews of his work. Nerve.Com http://www.nerve.com/Fiction/CooperBernard/sheets/ “So the guy who draws my blood — what do you call them? A blood-drawer? — tells me I'm his last needle-stick of the day,” begins the lengthy excerpt from Bernard Cooper’s short story “Between the Sheets.” Graphology: Bernard Cooper http://www.blithe.com/bhq4.4/4.4.11.html Blithe.com reprints “Graphology” by Bernard Cooper. Bernard Cooper’s Interviews and Profiles at PreviewPort http://www.previewport.com/Home/cooper-i.html “The challenge of, and engagement with, language motivates everything I write,” Bernard Cooper tells PreviewPort in this interview. In addition to the interview, this site also presents a brief biography of Cooper and a list of some of his published works. BIOGRAPHY Cooper was born in Hollywood, California; attended the California Institute of the Arts (M.F.A., 1979); and currently resides in Los Angeles. After graduation, he abandoned visual art and began to write, supporting himself as a shoe salesman. He taught at the UCLA Writer’s Program and the Creating Writing program at Antioch University. He has published two collections of memoirs as well as a novel, and his essays have been anthologized in The Best American Essays (1988, 1995, 1997) and The Oxford Book of Literature on Aging. His most recent book is a collection of short stories, Guess Again (2000). Among his awards are the P.E.N./Ernest Hemingway Award (1991) and the O’Henry Prize (1995). In a recent interview, Cooper asserted that “a good piece of writing causes you to have a sense of identification, even if the experience . . . is remote from your own. When suddenly you feel that you’ve taken on a completely foreign experience and you’re living it to its fullest, it’s absolutely transporting. It’s one of the greatest pleasures literature can offer.”