Today we’d like to introduce you to Alicia Cook

Hi Alicia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?

My name is Alicia Cook and I have known I’ve wanted to make a career out of writing since I was about eight years old. I never once changed course, and here I am 30 years later, a bestselling and award-winning author, essayist, and speaker.

But how I got here was not in a flash. It was definitely a slow burn, filled with major milestones, trauma and heartbreak, and the sting of rejection.

While I was beginning to post poetry on Instagram in the mid 2010s, I also published essays on whatever platform would accept my pitches. The essays focused on the mental health impact drug addiction has on entire families. I had first-hand knowledge of this indescribable pain, as my cousin Jessica died from a heroin overdose in 2006.

Given the huge response, those essays must have been published at the right time. Eventually, most of my essays on the topic found a home on the HuffPost blog, and I posted about 50 essays in the span of one or two years. People all over the world were reading my thoughts on the opioid epidemic and its effect on families. A few of my essays were even translated into other languages. Soon, I was being invited to speak at events and participate in panels. I have earned a number of awards and recognitions for this work.

Around this time, my poetry – which was not exclusively about addiction and covered a number of intersecting themes – was also gaining popularity, and my Instagram followers started to ask if I was ever going to publish a book. So, in 2016, I decided to self-publish my first poetry book, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately.” This little book changed my life. On its own, it became a best seller and was even a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards that year.

That same year, PBS approached me to document my advocacy work on the opioid front. The documentary, entitled “A Family Disease,” marked the 10th anniversary of my cousin’s death and is still available to stream.

Eventually, in late 2016, a lit agent reached out to represent me and together we secured a book deal with Andrews McMeel Publishing, who re-published “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” and has published four other books since, which includes my very popular mixtape trilogy (“Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately,” “Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back,” and “The Music Was Just Getting Good.”)

It’s hard for me to really chronicle my career – this might be one of the first times I’ve tried to sit down and describe it, because so much was happening at once for a long time. Writing has saved my life and I would be doing it even if I couldn’t make a total career out of it. In my younger years, when I was more insecure and made to feel strange because I wasn’t like my peers, my ability to take a blank page and create characters and worlds out of thin air where people were accepted and safe was a beautiful form of escapism for me. It felt like my superpower.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

Being a writer is never a smooth road. Rejection is always a part of the gig. So, I will share one semi-recent story with you. For about 10 years, I submitted to The New York Times (NYT). Whether it was my poetry or an essay, depended on the year but each year without fail I would submit something to the NYT. And each year, for 10 years; I got rejected or ghosted entirely. Until November 2022, when a small bit of writing I submitted to their Tiny Love Stories column got accepted.

The point I am trying to get at here is…if I quit submitting to the Times after the first or second or sixth rejection, I would have never finally achieved this goal of mine. Rejection is a part of being a creator. But there is nothing like that feeling when something finally clicks and happens for you.

I am still trying to get a poem of mine accepted into The New Yorker.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I’m a multi-award-winning writer and mental health and addiction awareness advocate based in Newark, New Jersey. My writing often focuses on addiction, mental health, and grief – sometimes all at once. According to Wikipedia, my poetry is characterized by “direct, unflinching honesty and rich compassion.”

My poetry books:
– Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately
– I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip
– Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back
– The Music Was Just Getting Good

I am most proud of the fact that my writing has reached people who seem to need it the most. I love that my writing seems to find people. Feels natural and organic, in a way. An amazing side effect of writing in this modern day is there are platforms that allow two-way access between authors and readers. I tend to write about the heavy side of life. So readers often find me when they are going through something and looking to connect to something and feel seen. I receive messages every day, and have for years. Ranging from “I happened to find your book in the store and thought the cover was cool” to “I found your book after a failed suicide attempt” to “my friend died and your book explains grief so well.” I’ve had grieving mothers wait at speaking engagements to meet me and gift me something from their deceased child’s bedroom. They mail me Christmas cards. Just knowing I’ve helped someone feel a little bit more tethered to this earth and less alone is what I am most proud of.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?

My authenticity. I do not hop on trends just because I might sell a few more books. I was always in this for the long-haul and my focus was always on the longevity of my career. In all these years, I’ve always just shown up as myself, no matter what room I am in. I treat everyone with respect and most importantly I respect myself too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thealiciacook.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealiciacook/
• Other: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7969405.Alicia_Cook

Image Credits

main photo: John Romano Photography