Joe Coomer (1958 - )

Genre: General Fiction, Non-Fiction

A Texas native, raised in Kentucky, Joe Coomer still lives in Texas most of the year but summers in a house on the river in Eliot, ME, and sails along the Maine coast. His wife Heather is a Connecticut native, but her family were some of the original settlers of Eliot. Coomer attended the University of Kentucky and graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1982. He taught creative writing in New Mexico after graduating from college.

Coomer's first work of fiction was published in 1983, The Decatur Road: A Novel of the Appalachian Country. Other works include:

• Kentucky Love (1985)
• A Flatland Fable (1986/1987)
• The Loop (1992/1993/1999; reviews of The Loop)
• Dream House: On Building A House By A Pond (1992; non-fiction, the story of building their Victorian home in Texas)
• Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God (1995/1997; optioned for movie rights; takes place NH; an excerpt from Beachcombing)
• Sailing in a Spoonful of Water: A Landlubber's Education of a Vintage Wooden Boat (1997/1998; non-fiction, chronicling Coomer's 4 years on a motorsailer off the coast of Maine.
• Apologizing to Dogs (1999/2000)
• One Vacant Chair (2003), set in Texas.
• Pocketful of Names (2005), set on a rocky Maine island, about 34-year-old Hannah Bryant, a successful artist who relishes her seclusion and privacy, and her relationships with her great-uncle, half-sister, and others.

Last Update: 07/30/2007

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