My Teacher

John Cotter is the author of Losing Music: A Memoir of Art, Pain, and Transformation (Milkweed, 2023), winner of the Colorado Book Award, and the novella Under the Small Lights (Miami University Press, 2010). His essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, AGNI, Guernica, Epoch, and The Georgia Review; and his fiction in Prairie Schooner, New England Review, Copper Nickel, and Joyland. He lives in Providence. (updated 4/2026)