LEOPARDI
WRITING CONFERENCE

Thomas Cooney is a graduate of UCLA with a degree in Art History, and NYU with an MA in Modernism. From 1997 – 2012 he anchored the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California where he served as Acting Director, Director, and Coordinator. His short prose has been anthologized in The Answer, My Friend and Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit, and his travel essays have appeared in the San Francisco ChronicleSunday Magazine (Liberation, Paradise Lost, Bollywood Dreams). His music criticism has been widely published. A Graham Greene scholar, he has also served on several advisory boards, and from 2006 – 2008 was appointed for three consecutive years to serve on the recommendation committee for the awarding of International Fulbright Awards in the field of Creative Writing.