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 The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

. He teaches at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

Biography

Cottrell was born in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

in 1981 and was adopted, along with two biologically unrelated younger Korean boys, into a family from the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. He was raised in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Cottrell started his first novel in his early thirties. In 2012 he received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After moving from New York to Los Angeles, he completed the novel in 2016. The resulting book, a "stylized contemporary noir" titled '' Sorry to Disrupt the Peace'', was published by

McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to n ...

in 2017. Cottrell has called the book "an anti-memoir". 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. 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". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' called the book "electrifying in its freshness" and the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' called it "a strange and lovely thing". ''Sorry to Disrupt the Peace'' won a National Gold Medal from the

Independent Publisher Book Awards The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also styled the IPPY Awards, are a set of annual book awards for independently published titles. They are the longest-running unaffiliated contest open exclusively to independent presses. The IPPY Awards ar ...

for Best First Book in the Fiction category. It also won Barnes & Noble’s 2017 Discover Award for Fiction. In 2018 Cottrell received the

in fiction, which is given to promising writers in the early stages of their careers. The selection committee said that his writing "opens up fresh lines of questioning in the old interrogations of identity". Cottrell came out as

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

in 2021 and uses he/they pronouns.

Recognition

*2017: Barnes & Noble Discover Award *2017: National Gold Medal from the

for Best First Book – Fiction *2018:

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cottrell, Patrick 1981 births Living people 21st-century American novelists School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni American writers of Korean descent South Korean emigrants to the United States South Korean adoptees People from Milwaukee American male novelists 21st-century male writers American transgender writers Transgender male writers American LGBT people of Asian descent 21st-century American male writers