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Author Biography

Biography of Evelyn Cole

Evelyn Cole "taught English" for 23 years, but not in the usual sense. You might say she pioneered English. To get high school freshman interested in Greek mythology she persuaded them to teach it to sixth graders across town by email. One day she overheard a boy at his computer whisper to his friend, "What's a polite word for castration?"
To get college freshman to understand why they were required to analyze literature, she showed them how classification and structural and operational analyses related to all subjects in their curriculum.
To get all students to relate to language she made them write freely every day. To keep abused high school students in school, she took them home once a week for spontaneous writing, discussion, and creative productions.
Evelyn has read the personal journals of hundreds of students including some from boat people escaping Vietnam, some fleeing Iran, but most living in vacuous affluence in Orange County, California. Some of their friends committed suicide.
From her AB degree in psychology, Evelyn went on to earn her degree in English, a California teaching credential, an MA in literature, and then later and MFA in creative writing. While a mentor teacher in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, she worked with teachers to develop their own writing skills, and by example, teach their students. She wrote and published curriculum and conducted workshops throughout the state. In 1994 she published a semantics based textbook that integrates all subjects in the seventh and eighth grade curriculum.
When Evelyn was 19 and a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, her brother-in-law, a professor at the University of Kentucky, committed suicide. She transferred to UK to help her sister with her little children, and eventually graduated from UK. Other students there, upon hearing her speak in class, often asked her what country she came from. She has since toned down her Boston accent, except when she reads her own poetry.
In addition to her two published novels, short stories, poems, and soon to be published collection of poems, she has a self-help e-course online called BRAINSWEEP. It's a course of directed handwriting exercises to access the other 90% of your brain.
She has been to Paris, France twelve times because she loves that city.
She has been married three times. The third time is a charm.
She has two daughters from her first marriage. One lives next door. The other lives in Brisbane, Australia. Each has two children. She is in close contact with both families.
Retired from teaching, Evelyn lives and writes in San Luis Obispo County which has a vibrant community of writers and poets. She reads her poetry regularly all over the county. She rides the waves in the summer, kayaks Morro Bay, plays ping pong all year and cooks at least four days a week for the sheer joy of it.
Finally, although she admires many people, she has only one hero: Tom Robbins, the author of several loquacious, funny, and wise novels.