With My Back to the World Nominated for Two Awards

With My Back to the World is a Finalist for the 28th Annual Hamilton Literary Awards, nominated in the Fiction Category and for the Kerry Schooley Book Award. Hosted by the Hamilton Arts Council.

Awards Ceremony Dec 16, 7 pm on Cable 14

With My Back to the World is a Finalist

for the Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction & The Kerry Schooley Book Award.

Two Exciting Events This Week!

Two Exciting Events This Week!

So excited to present these events in Hamilton this week:

TONIGHT: Author Talk + Film Screening at AGH: Art Gallery of Hamilton. Click here to see a trailer of Agnes Martin: Before the Grid, showing tonight. 7 p.m.

TUES. NOV. 12 “Taking on an Icon: Turning an Artist into a Character” at LitChat, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library, 7:30 p.m.

Read More

Fantasy film casting With My Back to the World

Fantasy film casting With My Back to the World

So, I got the chance to fantasy-produce a movie adaptation of With My Back to the World.

(Jane Campion won’t mind shooting in Canada and New Mexico, right?)

Would you see this movie? I know I’d love to see Frances McDormand play Agnes Martin.

(With thanks to All Lit Up for featuring With My Back to the World in the Character Study column.)

Read More

Intuitive Surrender: Interview in Hamilton Review of Books Latest Issue

I’m very grateful to Kathryn Walsh Kuitenbrouwer for her incisive, insightful questions in this interview about With My Back to the World for Hamilton Review of Books.

Intuitive Surrender

KATHRYN WALSH KUITENBROUWER INTERVIEWS SALLY COOPER

Sally Cooper’s third novel, With My Back to the World, published by Wolsak &Wynn, was released in spring 2019. She is the author of the story collection Smells Like Heaven (ARP Books, 2017) as well as two acclaimed novels. Sally is a senior editor with Hamilton Review of Books.

Sally Cooper. With My Back to the World. James Street North Books. $22.00, 376 pp., ISBN: 9781928088806

Kathryn Walsh Kuitenbrouwer: Sally, thank you for the opportunity to read and immerse in your compelling new novel, With My Back to the World. I have a lot of questions about the subject matter and the impulses that drew you to it. My first one is about art-making and motherhood. I loved reading about Agnes Martin’s art—and Rudie’s documentary filmmaking—processes.  Is there, do you think, an analogy to be made between the urgency of art-making for Martin and the willful desire toward motherhood for Rudie?

SC: I love this first question as it touches the heart of what’s driving these two women and what draws Rudie to Agnes.

Click here for the full interview.

With My Back to the World has launched!

With My Back to the World has launched!

What a week! Two packed-to-the gills events in Toronto and Hamilton and With My Back to the World is well and truly launched. It was a thrill to hold and read from the novel for the first time and with such a strong, exciting group of women writers. The love in the room was real! I’m filled with gratitude for family and friends and writer peeps who came out and for Noelle Allen and all at Wolsak & Wynn for making this novel a reality. . #tooexcitedtotakepictures

Read More

Storylines Interview

Storylines Interview

une in to The Bay 88.7 fm Sat. May 18 at 8 a.m. to hear my interview with Christine Cowley on Storylines. Here’s what she has to say:

While we’re waiting for spring to roll into summer (remember that concept?) here’s a bit of soul nutrition. Author Sally Cooper’s latest novel. *With My Back to the World*, is a delicately layered, sustaining bit of soulfood—the perfect accompaniment to a spring tonic. Join us for Storylines this Saturday, May 18 at 8 am as we dig into the craft—which Sally brings so deftly to the page—of telling the stories of three women, generations apart, linked by invisible threads of personal history.

Storylines airs Saturday mornings around 8 a.m., or for you night owls, a second airing on Wednesday nights at 11 p.m. Tune in just ahead of the hour—our new magazine format sometimes jumps us ahead. If you miss those time slots, you can catch the podcast afterwards at https://muskokaradio.com.

I’m your host for Storylines, chatting with authors and book folks about books and the writing life. For those outside our listening area, you can pick up the show on-line or better yet, listen on your phone with the HBR app—use this link http://bit.ly/2djThj4 (or go to www.HuntersBayRadio.com to download).

Read More