Self-publisher Alfred Cool was born and raised in BC. He attended Simon Fraser University where he took English and Computer courses. He is a member of the Canadian Authors Association. He worked and travelled extensively on the Coast of BC for most of his life. For 26 years, as a computer professional, he lived in various northern BC communities.
Background
Information
Released in December of 2012, Alfred Cool's e-novel The 5 Cent Murder, set in 1973, follows a narrator who takes a chokerman job in a remote B.C. coastal logging camp. He soon realizes the company has hired work-release prisoners to fill out the full crew--including a dangerous, serial rapist. In this narrative comedy, the author captures the local color, danger and humour of those who did “run or die!” in logging camps, culminating in a confrontation for the finale of the story.
The 5-Cent Murder is in the style of Peter Trower’s fiction trilogy, part of a distinct West Coast fiction tradition dating back to Roderick Haig-Brown’s Timber (1942) and On the Highest Hill (1949) and going all the way back to M.A. Grainger’s 1908 classic Woodsmen of the West. “There is a trick to this ‘honest writing’ that has to come from the blood and bone to the keyboard,” says Cool. “I get it now—Writing stories is all or nothing. Anyone can talk about style, linguistics, components, form; not everyone has the guts it takes to write exposed and vulnerable, angry, desperate, sobbing and laughing.”
Considering his own approach to fiction, Cool says he imagines the voices of Dashiell Hammett (Grit), Mark Twain (Humour) and Zane Grey (Romance & Setting) if all three were sitting around a bar table having a few drinks. "After that," he says, "there's no controlling."
He finished his fifth novel, “The LA Project” which will be completed September 2015.
Birth Place
Vancouver, Canada
Accomplishments
Publications – Writer’s CV
“The LA Project” Fiction/novel 2015
“The Pony Club" 57,700 words, Fiction/memoir, 2014
“U-235 & Me”, 99,000 words, Fiction/memoir, 2014
“The 5 Cent Murder”, 101,000 words, BC Coast Logging fiction/memoir, 2013.
“Dry Camp!” 36,000 words, BC Coast Logging memoir, 2012
“When the Truth Won’t Do” 1st place in the Canadian Authors Association-VANCOUVER short fiction contest, 2013
“My Phantom Looks Like the ‘Man From Glad’” 3rd place in the Canadian Authors Association-CANWRITE short story contest, 2012
“Victory Square” Danforth Review
Canadian Authors Association Anthology 2012, 2014
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