Hey dear stranger, I’m glad you’re here!
My name is Sarah Kokernot and I’m a fiction writer and essayist. (Secretly I’m also a poet.) I write because others have touched me through their work and I hope to touch someone through mine. My writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, Tricycle, EPOCH, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, West Branch, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications.
You can find a selection of published works on this page. I’m currently finishing my first novel and working on a book of essays.
I grew up in Kentucky in a queer family the 80’s and 90’s. I found refuge in books, nature, chosen family, and the numinous. Like many artists, I’ve struggled to balance creating from a place that feels true to my lived (and often deeply weird) experience with the demands of the commercial market. After writing and publishing for fifteen years, I’ve learned that I value genuine connection and authenticity most of all.
I live near Chicago with my husband and our two children. I work as a grant writer and nonprofit consultant at StoryStudio, one of the nation’s leading creative writing centers. I also teach there as an instructor.
In the past, I’ve worked as a Northwestern University professor, where I taught fiction workshops to undergraduates, and as a bilingual (English/Spanish) K-12 teacher. My professional teaching experience informs my work as a creative guide, manuscript consultant, and creative writing teacher.
I believe spirituality is a form of creative practice and creative practice a form of spirituality. Both can awaken us to a greater sense of clarity, wonder, interdependence, and unconditional love. Like many weirdos who grew up in the Bible Belt, I read a lot about European animism and land-centered religions during my adolescence. I’m culturally Christian, which means I take my kids to church twice a year. I’ve been a Tibetan Buddhist practicioner for over twenty years. I like my dharma to honor tradition while also staying down-to-earth, open-minded, and in conversation with other belief systems.
You can read more about the intersection of dharma practice, spiritual ecology, and writing into amazement in my Substack, Your Wild and Radiant Mind.
Interested in working with me as a creative coach or manuscript consultant? Let’s chat over a free 15-minute discovery call. If we both think it’s a good fit, we’ll take it from there!