Patrick Cottrell
{{Short description|American writer (born 1981)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Patrick Cottrell
| image =
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| birth_name = Patty Yumi Cottrell
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1981}}
| birth_place = South Korea
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| occupation = Writer
| nationality = American
| genre = {{flatlist|
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| notableworks = Sorry to Disrupt the Peace
| spouse =
| education = School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA)
| children =
| awards = Whiting Award
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| website =
}}
Patrick Cottrell (born Patty Yumi Cottrell, 1981) is an American writer. He is the author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace and the winner of a 2018 Whiting Award. He teaches at the University of Denver.{{Cite web |title=Patrick Cottrell {{!}} Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences |url=https://liberalarts.du.edu/about/people/patrick-cottrell |access-date=2022-08-30 |website=liberalarts.du.edu}}
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.{{cite interview|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/18/patty-yumi-cottrell-sorry-to-disrupt-the-peace-interview|title=Patty Yumi Cottrell: 'I'm not trying to hide anything – the novel is not a memoir'|first=Patty Yumi|last=Cottrell|interviewer=Richard Lea|work=The Guardian|date=May 18, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} He was raised in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Milwaukee.
Cottrell started his first novel in his early thirties.{{cite interview|url=https://aaww.org/patty-yumi-cottrell-haunted-and-obsessed/|title=Patty Yumi Cottrell: Haunted and Obsessed|first=Patty Yumi|last=Cottrell|work=The Margins|publisher=Asian American Writers Workshop|interviewer=Brandon Shimoda|date=May 18, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} In 2012 he received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181007053825/http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/writing/students-and-alumni|archive-date=October 7, 2018|url=http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/writing/students-and-alumni|title=SAIC Writing Program Students and Alumni|website=School of the Art Institute of Chicago|access-date=October 6, 2018}} After moving from New York to Los Angeles, he completed the novel in 2016.{{cite interview|url=https://therumpus.net/2017/11/the-rumpus-interview-with-patty-yumi-cottrell/|title=Drawing Close to the Void: Talking with Patty Yumi Cottrell|work=The Rumpus|first=Patty Yumi|last=Cottrell|interviewer=Maria Anderson|date=November 17, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} The resulting book, a "stylized contemporary noir" titled Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, was published by McSweeney's in 2017.{{cite web|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-waterfall-coping-strategy-patty-yumi-cottrells-sorry-to-disrupt-the-peace/|title=The Waterfall Coping Strategy: Patty Yumi Cottrell's 'Sorry to Disrupt the Peace'|work=Los Angeles Review of Books|first=Nathan Scott|last=McNamara|date=March 14, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} Cottrell has called the book "an anti-memoir".{{cite interview|url=https://lithub.com/patty-yumi-cottrell-writing-is-not-therapeutic-in-any-way/|title=Patty Yumi Cottrell: Writing is not Therapeutic in Any Way|work=LitHub|first=Patty Yumi|last=Cottrell|interviewer=Claire Luchette|date=March 21, 2017|access-date=May 5, 2019}} 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 her adoptive brother's suicide.{{cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-944211-30-1|title=Sorry to Disrupt the Peace|website=Publishers Weekly|date=November 21, 2016|access-date=October 6, 2018}} Writing for The Rumpus, Liza St. James called the book "marvelously interior" and praised the writing as "discursive and associative and gripping all at once".{{cite web|url=http://therumpus.net/2017/04/sorry-to-disrupt-the-peace/|title=The Myth of the Troubled Female in Sorry to Disrupt the Peace|website=The Rumpus|first=Liza|last=St. James|date=April 11, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} The Guardian called the book "electrifying in its freshness"{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/07/sorry-to-disrupt-the-piece-patty-yumi-cottrell-review|title=Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell review – an electifying existential detective hunt|work=The Guardian|first=Lucy|last=Scholes|date=May 7, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} and the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a strange and lovely thing".{{cite web|url=https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Sorry-to-Disrupt-the-Peace-by-Patty-Yumi-11101713.php|title='Sorry to Disrupt the Peace,' by Patty Yumi Cottrell|website=SFGate|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|first=Ilana|last=Masad|date=April 27, 2017|access-date=October 6, 2018}} Sorry to Disrupt the Peace won a National Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards for Best First Book in the Fiction category. It also won Barnes & Noble’s 2017 Discover Award for Fiction.
In 2018 Cottrell received the Whiting Award in fiction, which is given to promising writers in the early stages of their careers.{{cite web|url=http://www.startribune.com/whiting-awards-go-to-weike-wang-patty-yumi-cottrell-eight-others/477947973/|title=Whiting Awards go to Weike Wang, Patty Yumi Cottrell, eight others|website=Star Tribune|first=Laurie|last=Hertzel|date=March 26, 2018|access-date=October 6, 2018}}{{cite web|magazine=Vanity Fair|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/03/whiting-award-ceremony-winners-2018|title=The Crystal Ball of the Literature World Has Picked These 10 Writers to Watch This Year|first=Erin|last=Vanderhoof|date=March 22, 2018|access-date=October 6, 2018}} The selection committee said that his writing "opens up fresh lines of questioning in the old interrogations of identity".
Cottrell came out as transgender in 2021.{{cite tweet |last=Cottrell |first=Patrick |user=pmcottrell |number=1347579283225636864 |date=January 8, 2021 |title=For those who don't know yet, I thought l'd put this out here: my new name is Patrick. I'm trans. My pronouns are he/they. Feeling grateful and calm. |language=en |access-date=August 20, 2021}}
Recognition
- 2017: Barnes & Noble Discover Award{{Cite web|url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/barnes-noble-discover-great-new-writers-award/2017-barnes-noble-discover-great-new-writers-award/_/N-29Z8q8Z1qqy|title=2017 Discover Awards|website=Barnes & Noble|language=en|access-date=October 6, 2018}}
- 2017: National Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards for Best First Book – Fiction{{cite web|url=http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=2172|title=2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards National Medalists: 21st Annual Awards|website=Independent Publisher|access-date=October 6, 2017}}
- 2018: Whiting Award{{Cite web|url=https://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/patty-yumi-cottrell#/|title=Patty Yumi Cottrell|website=The Whiting Foundation|access-date=October 6, 2018}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book|first=Patty Yumi|last=Cottrell|title=Sorry to Disrupt the Peace|publisher=McSweeney's|date=2017|isbn=9781944211301}}
References
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Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
Category:American writers of Korean descent
Category:South Korean emigrants to the United States
Category:South Korean adoptees
Category:Writers from Milwaukee
Category:American male novelists
Category:21st-century male writers
Category:American transgender writers
Category:Transgender male writers