Patty Yumi Cottrell
Patty Yumi Cottrell (born 1981) is an American writer. They are the author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace and the winner of a 2018 Whiting Award.
Patty Yumi Cottrell | |
---|---|
Born | 1981 (age 38–39) South Korea |
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
Genre | |
Notable works | Sorry to Disrupt the Peace |
Notable awards | Whiting Award |
Biography
Cottrell was born in South Korea in 1981 and was adopted, along with two biologically unrelated younger Korean boys, into a family from the Midwestern United States.[1] They were raised in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Milwaukee.[2]
Cottrell started writing their first novel while in their early thirties.[3] In 2012 they received their M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[4] After moving from New York to Los Angeles, they completed the novel in 2016.[5] The resulting book, a "stylized contemporary noir" titled Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, was published by McSweeney's in 2017.[6] Cottrell has called the book "an anti-memoir".[7] It tells the story of Helen, a woman adopted from Korea at a young age, who returns to her adoptive parents' home in Milwaukee after the suicide of her adoptive brother.[8] Writing for The Rumpus, Liza St. James described the book as "marvelously interior" and praised the writing as "discursive and associative and gripping all at once".[9] The Guardian called the book "electrifying in its freshness"[10] and the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a strange and lovely thing".[11] Sorry to Disrupt the Peace won a National Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards for Best First Book in the Fiction category.[12] It also won Barnes & Noble’s 2017 Discover Award for Fiction.[13]
In 2018 Cottrell received the Whiting Award in fiction, which is given to promising writers in the early stages of their careers.[14][15] The selection committee particularly noted that their writing "opens up fresh lines of questioning in the old interrogations of identity".[2]
Recognition
- 2017: Barnes & Noble Discover Award[13]
- 2017: National Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards for Best First Book – Fiction[12]
- 2018: Whiting Award[2]
Bibliography
- Cottrell, Patty Yumi (2017). Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. McSweeney's. ISBN 9781944211301.
References
- Cottrell, Patty Yumi (May 18, 2017). "Patty Yumi Cottrell: 'I'm not trying to hide anything – the novel is not a memoir'". The Guardian (Interview). Interviewed by Richard Lea. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- "Patty Yumi Cottrell". The Whiting Foundation. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Cottrell, Patty Yumi (May 18, 2017). "Patty Yumi Cottrell: Haunted and Obsessed". The Margins (Interview). Interviewed by Brandon Shimoda. Asian American Writers Workshop. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- "SAIC Writing Program Students and Alumni". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on October 7, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Cottrell, Patty Yumi (November 17, 2017). "Drawing Close to the Void: Talking with Patty Yumi Cottrell". The Rumpus (Interview). Interviewed by Maria Anderson. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- McNamara, Nathan Scott (March 14, 2017). "The Waterfall Coping Strategy: Patty Yumi Cottrell's 'Sorry to Disrupt the Peace'". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Cottrell, Patty Yumi (March 21, 2017). "Patty Yumi Cottrell: Writing is not Therapeutic in Any Way". LitHub (Interview). Interviewed by Claire Luchette. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
- "Sorry to Disrupt the Peace". Publishers Weekly. November 21, 2016. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- St. James, Liza (April 11, 2017). "The Myth of the Troubled Female in Sorry to Disrupt the Peace". The Rumpus. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Scholes, Lucy (May 7, 2017). "Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell review – an electifying existential detective hunt". The Guardian. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Masad, Ilana (April 27, 2017). "'Sorry to Disrupt the Peace,' by Patty Yumi Cottrell". SFGate. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- "2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards National Medalists: 21st Annual Awards". Independent Publisher. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
- "2017 Discover Awards". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Hertzel, Laurie (March 26, 2018). "Whiting Awards go to Weike Wang, Patty Yumi Cottrell, eight others". Star Tribune. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
- Vanderhoof, Erin (March 22, 2018). "The Crystal Ball of the Literature World Has Picked These 10 Writers to Watch This Year". Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 6, 2018.