Elwin Cotman
Elwin Cotman is a storyteller from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of five books: the poetry collection The Wizard’s Homecoming, and the short story collections The Jack Daniels Sessions EP, Hard Times Blues, Dance on Saturday, and Weird Black Girls. His debut novel The Age of Ignorance will be published by Scribner in 2025. He has worked as a video game consultant and writer for Square Enix. He holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and a MFA from Mills College.
Student Feedback for Elwin
Elwin’s approach to finding unusual and innovative angles from which to
generate new work inspired an avalanche of new poems and stories for me. Shoshauna Shy
I’m not usually very keen on online courses. (It’s hard to get any real energy from participants and instructors don’t hold the class together and keep us on track.) Mr. Cotman is the exception. I read poetry. And yet, he introduced me to a wide range of new and classic poetry. He kept the class on track and organized. He provided a variety of types of exercises to encourage us to think outside the box and to do what the course said it was supposed to do – help writers bring poetry to their work. Bravo, Elwin Cotman. Margaret Byrne
Elwin’s course workload, fast-paced lectures, creative prompts and choice of texts have exercised new muscles in me in terms of discipline and of what I’ve imagined possible for the life of my writing. It’s interesting. My poetic tendencies pulled into prose: it’s me, but an expanded me. I can tell I am the one who’s been writing these stories, but it’s very new to experience it and read it all back. I also appreciate him introducing us to works that sit at the intersection of prose and poetry, because it feels as if I’ve got a place in the genre, the intersection makes a lot of sense to me. Dionna Vereen
Elwin’s class was in equal measure academically rigorous and creatively adventurous, challenging us with wildly generative writing exercises and inspiring us with some of the best sci-fi fantasy short stories I’d never heard of (but which I now count among my favorites). Our deep dive into Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn was a sublime capstone to his engaging course of study, and I highly recommend the experience of studying with him to anyone who doesn’t simply enjoy sci-fi-fantasy, but lives it, devours it, breathes it in and out…in waking life and dream. Benjamin Friedman
