T COOPER is the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Beaufort Diaries and Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, as well as the four-part young adult novel series entitled Changers. (Changers Books 1-4 were co-written with Allison Glock-Cooper.) Cooper’s most recent solo book is the nonfiction Real Man Adventures (McSweeney’s). His television writing credits include Netflix’s The Get Down and BBC America’s Copper. He most recently served as an Executive Producer/writer on The Blacklist (NBC) for five seasons.
He is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.
Cooper’s directorial film debut is the feature-length documentary Man Made, which appeared at more than 80 film festivals worldwide, and won 14 Best Documentary Jury and Audience Awards. The film was released worldwide by Journeyman Pictures, and streams on Amazon.
Cooper is also writing a biopic for Mark Gordon Productions (currently in pre-production), and his most recent directing work is a music video/short film for Atlantic Records (“I Am Samantha”), and a series of commercials for the ACLU.
T Cooper was born and raised in Los Angeles, earned his B.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont (where he is a 2024 Alumni Achievement Award Winner), and taught high school in New Orleans before settling in New York City in the mid-1990s. He earned an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia University, and in addition to his books, Cooper’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including the The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s, The Believer, Mother Jones, The Georgia Review, One Story, Bomb, The Guardian, The Brooklyn Review, The Portland Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, Poets & Writers, and many others.
Cooper’s short story “Swimming” (The New Yorker) was one of “100 Distinguished Stories” in The Best American Short Stories 2008 (ed Salman Rushdie).
Cooper has been awarded residencies to The MacDowell Colony, Ledig House International, and The Millay Colony (where he was The New York Times Foundation Fellow). He was also a creative producing fellow and recipient of grants from the Sundance Documentary Film Program (with Man Made).
Cooper adapted and produced a short film based on his graphic novel The Beaufort Diaries. The animated short, starring actor David Duchovny, premiered at Tribeca and South by Southwest. Cooper has also written and hosted radio segments, and operates a small production company with his wife (Holler Beach Productions).
T Cooper enjoys vintage airplanes, M*A*S*H, the great outdoors, espresso, world peace, and anything to do with pit bull rescue and advocacy.
