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Courtney Zoffness

@czoffness

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1697

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Author of SPILT MILK (@mcswys)
Sunday Times Short Story Award winner
Creative Writing director @drewuniversity

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Didn’t realize my dream was to become an author trading card until it came true! Thank you @mcswys ! I am not worthy of my pack-mates, but damn am I honored to be in the stack. 💙⚾️

#gottacatchemall by @czoffness

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2 years ago

Oh just chillin between @barackobama and @ibramxk NBD. Signed this sumptuous stack at @booksaremagicbk 😍 by @czoffness

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6 years ago

Courtney Zoffness’s acclaimed collection Spilt Milk is out in paperback today! Available wherever books are sold (and through the link in our bio).

“Spilt Milk explores the physicality of the body and how generational memory, anxiety, and disappointment entwine within us to conceive life. These are essays about pain. About belief. About desire ... a window into the experience of how we both inherit and pass on different parts of ourselves.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books by @czoffness

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4 years ago

What luck to have been a student of the generous and wise Stephen Dixon and to celebrate the release of three posthumous books with fellow acolytes last night! Dixon modeled, among other things, an unwillingness to compromise his singular voice. (Extra sweet that McSweeney’s, the publisher that embraced his idiosyncratic work, is the publisher that also embraced mine.) You can hang with all three of these faces in October! As the 🌟 Kirkus review notes, “In a world as fraught and misbegotten as this one, Dixon’s is the voice we need to hear.”

F. Murray Abraham!

Fellow readers / Dixonians: ZZ Packer & Jessica Anya Blau

One of the outrageously thoughtful letters he wrote in response to a (terrible) short story I submitted to a grad workshop in 2003.

Rest in power. by @czoffness

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a month ago

“That was my heroism—my tenacious fidelity to her, though it was based on a grave misperception. I thought desire was duty. No trial could not be endured nor impediment smashed in desire’s holy service, or so I believed…I didn’t grasp that desire and duty could rival each other, least of all that they most often do.” by @czoffness

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2 months ago

In summer 2006, I gave a two-minute reading at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, where I was a waiter. The experience was outrageously intimidating; I was an unemployed MFA and the audience was full of literary superstars. The next day, while I was sweeping the dining hall, Paul Yoon approached. We’d never met. He asked if he could read the short story I’d excerpted. I obliged. A few hours later he returned to tell me how much he admired the writing, pointing out details I didn’t think anyone else would notice and asking about my process. I was floored. The exchange was made all richer when I discovered the tenderness and brilliance of his fiction. I have been teaching his work ever since. This is a Paul Yoon appreciation post but maybe it’s also a note about small kindnesses? How they can power a person through self-doubt? I told Paul as much when I had the good fortune to be back at Bread Loaf with him in 2025. Last night in Catskill, he read from his newest novel, ETNA, a lyrical odyssey about war and dogs and destruction and yearning that had the room spellbound. I stayed up until the wee hours to follow Etna home. Highly recommend you do the same. by @czoffness

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2 months ago

What are your literary strengths—and how can you capitalize on them?

Our virtual weekend workshop for writers at all levels, led by @czoffness, will help you create new fiction or make progress on a project. You'll:

📓 Receive generative writing prompts and a primer on craft fundamentals
📓 Gain insight into the effect of your writing on others
📓 Get guided feedback to build on your strong suits.
📓 Have the opportunity to revise what you write in class

Register now through the Writing Workshops link in our bio! by @czoffness

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3 months ago

Sure, I may share a birthday with a creepy trillionaire and Henry VIII, but scroll through to see some *real* icons born on this day 🥂 by @czoffness

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4 months ago

Brimming with gratitude for this tirelessly devoted dad 💕 by @czoffness

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4 months ago

A stroke of luck that on June 25, I get to converse with one of my favorite authors/humans in one of my favorite bookstores about one of my favorite animals! Find out how Tomás rendered cat consciousness and built an Emotional Statistics syllabus and used his brilliance as a poet to write a profound, one-of-a-kind novel.

Bonus: a portion of ticket sales will benefit the Brooklyn Cat Cafe—the rescue org through which my family adopted our beloveds 😻😻 by @czoffness

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4 months ago

Break from Knicks fandom to cheer my niece, Charlotte, freshly-minted marine biology grad from UC Santa Cruz & former flower girl in my wedding, whose real & foam heads are 🔥. She is off to vet school in Saint Kitts—with her adorable cross-eyed rescue cat—and I am a proud auntie. by @czoffness

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4 months ago

How do I love thee? Ferociously. Immeasurably. Happy 12 years of life to this brilliant, resilient boy. by @czoffness

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5 months ago