Christine Cohen Park

Christine Cohen Park grew up in Sussex. After receiving an MA from the University of Sussex she worked at André Deutsch, then as a literary agent with MBA Literary Agents, before turning to fiction. Her first novels Joining the Grown-ups and The Househusband were published by Heinemann and well received. Her anthology Close Company, co-edited with Caroline Heaton, published by Virago, was selected as one of the ten best women’s books for 1992. It was followed by Caught in a Story, also with Caroline Heaton.

 

Christine lived in British Columbia for a decade, most of it on a remote island on the approach to Desolation Sound, on the edge of wilderness. The community’s struggles to protect their fragile eco-systems from the onslaught of logging, commercial interests and tourism, fed into the story of the island she told in A Key to Lock Out Cougars, published in association with the Cortes Archive Centre. Similar themes are explored in her short story Echoes From the Wilderness: The Jewish Quarterly 2002 .

 

After returning to England in 2000, Christine taught at Bath Spa, and then at Sussex University. She published short stories and prose pieces. A renewed interest in her Jewish roots, along with the drive to explore more deeply the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians were the joint triggers that led her to embark on her just-completed novel When We Change Our Minds. Following research trips to Israel and the Occupied Territories, she published Journal of A Wishy-Washy Liberal: Travelling through Israel and Palestine: Jewish Quarterly - 2014 and Pockets of Hope: European Judaism - 2017

 

Christine lives in Lewes, Sussex, with her partner and two dogs.