is
an award-winning playwright, journalist and author. She
writes about women’s issues and human rights. As a
playwright, Cooper’s works have been produced in New
York, throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. As a
two-time Jerome Fellow, she has written 16 additional
plays and six nonfiction books, in addition to numerous
articles.
“Rooted
in
early twentieth century Europe and strikingly similar to
contemporary struggles all over the globe, Cynthia
Cooper’s Silence Not, A Love Story offers readers and
audiences the always nec essary integration of art and
politics. She’s a skillful playwright who uses history,
with its relentless examination of our lives, as a rich
source for theater.”
"Thought-provoking without being
abstract, historical without being condescending,
Silence Not is a heady, beautifully written play.
Worth reading several times, it strikes a lovely
balance between poetry and reality, bringing to life
a diverse cast of characters in a challenging time
period. Cooper reminds us, in the closing lines,
that true resistance to oppression comes from the
act of love—and to love wholeheartedly is the most
radical act any person can commit." -Claire
Rudy Foster from ForeWord Reviews. Claire Rudy
Foster was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize,
Claire’s work has also been recognized by Best of
the Web. She operates the weekly online publication
WORK Literary Magazine, and is also pursuing her MFA
in Creative Writing/Fiction at Pacific University.
"Rooted in early twentieth century Europe and
strikingly similar to contemporary struggles all
over the globe, Cynthia Cooper’s Silence Not, A Love
Story offers readers and audiences the always
necessary integration of art and politics. She’s a
skillful playwright who uses history, with its
relentless examination of our lives, as a rich
source for theater." -Judith Arcana poet, writer and
scholar. She is the author of What if Your Mother,
4th Period English and Grace Paley’s Life Stories, A
Literary Biography
Pageonelit.com: When did you start reading?
Cynthia L. Cooper: When my older sister and brothers
would head off to school in the morning I would crawl into a cranny
at the bottom of our stairwell with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper
and a book. There, I spent the day. I loved going out with the
characters and, without anyone knowing, following them to places
that were built in my imagination. I soon learned to extend these
journeys into the night, smuggling a flashlight under my bed covers
so I could turn more pages.
Pageonelit.com: When you were growing up did you
have books in your home?
Cynthia L. Cooper: My mother was a librarian and
rumor had it that she read every book in her small-town library in
Dawson, Minnesota, by the time she was sixteen. She believed deeply
in the democracy of the public library system, so that’s where, in
the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, we got our books—lots of them.
Because of my mother’s conviction about libraries, we had only a
small number of “purchased” books. It’s a special pleasure for me as
an adult to buy books that I can pick up, read at any time, and
keep. But I also have the most enormous sense of reverence for
libraries as retreats of grandeur for the mind and spirit.
When did you think about becoming a writer? Was
there someone who got you interested in writing?
Cynthia L. Cooper: My most prized gift as a child
was a miniature rolltop desk that I received for my fifth birthday.
I still have a Kodak picture of me as I was led to the basement
where it had been hidden, bright ribbon adorning it. I slid back its
lid, realizing that I had my own dedicated place to sit and think
and write. By mid-elementary school I had a child’s typewriter and
not long after a cast-off mimeograph machine, which I used to write
and print a neighborhood newspaper. (Interestingly, my characters in
Silence Not, A Love Story, have one, too.)
With every writing venture, I received exceptionally
positive feedback from my teachers, but it was Mrs. Nunamaker, the
journalism teacher in high school, who offered me the genuine hope
that writing could be a future.
Pageonelit.com: How do you write? Do you have a
daily routine? What’s good about it? What do you loathe about it?
Cynthia L. Cooper: I set aside concentrated writing
time. Sometimes I read poetry before I settle in, clearing my mind
of the daily nattering. To concentrate, I put on headphones and
listen to instrumental piano music that closes out the world. When I
am transported into a writing space, I have one main irritant and
that comes when I must depart.
Pageonelit.com: Do you have any particular story to
tell concerning the writing of this book?
Cynthia L. Cooper: I became determined to write this
book while traveling on a train in France through a bare winter
landscape. I recalled a real story I had heard of a young Jewish
woman, who, after resisting the rise of the Nazis in Germany, had to
escape by rail to France. I was gripped by the situation of this
woman, fleeing in circumstances of great peril, full of trepidation,
knowing that everything about her past and the utterly honorable
moral choices she had made were lightening rods for danger. I felt
her dilemma as viscerally and three-dimensionally as if it were
happening around me. I poured that feeling into the first scene, and
at that moment, I became completely committed to writing the story.
Pageonelit.com: What advice would you offer young or
up-and-coming writers?
Cynthia L. Cooper: Three things: First, everything
begins with a commitment, and commitment is only meaningful if
action follows; second, the old maxim is true: writing is rewriting;
and third, the world is overflowing with drivel and trivia, write
something meaningful.
Pageonelit.com: How did you find the publisher for
this book?
Cynthia L. Cooper: I had a serendipitous encounter
with the publisher, Steve Feuer of Gihon River Press. He attended a
reading of the manuscript of this book—it’s actually a play—at the
Anne Frank Center in New York City. Afterward, he approached me,
said he liked it very much (which, of course, is something every
writer wants to hear), and inquired about publishing it. The book
unfolded from there.
www.gihonriverpress.com
Pageonelit.com: What are you working on at the
moment?
Cynthia L. Cooper: I’m working on a book about the
fascinating and surprising ways that prisoners in the United States
—men and women—relate to the sixty-year-old diary of Anne Frank.
