User:StaceyCochran

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My name is Stacey Cochran (born October 24, 1973), and I am an American author best known for my action-suspense stories that combine elements of science-fiction and crime fiction. I was a finalist for the 1998 Dell Magazines Award [1], a four-time quarter-finalist for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and my PI novel Culpepper: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shotgun was selected as a finalist for the 2004 St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest[2].

My first novel The Band [3] was published in May 2004. It was followed by a short story collection The Kiribati Test [4] in September 2004, and the young adult literature novel Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone [5] in November 2005.

1 Autobiography
2 Bibliography
- 2.1 Novels
- 2.2 Collections
3 Merits/Awards
4 External links
5 See also

[edit] Autobiography

Stacey Cochran was born on October 24, 1973 in Columbia, South Carolina, the third of three boys of Steve and Margaret Cochran. His father was a Marine Corps officer, and his mother was a nurse.

His family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1975, and Cochran grew up in a hardworking environment. He comments, "There was security in Raleigh, even if we were always fighting to stay ahead of the bills. I learned the value of quiet persistence and hard work at home."

At five years of age, Cochran signed his first contract in the publishing business with the Ad-Pak of Raleigh, North Carolina. His job was to deliver about 100 papers to homes in his neighborhood, and over the course of ten years working in delivery he learned what advertisements worked well, how distribution worked for a small press publisher, and how the printing press system worked.

During his youth, Cochran also worked the public address system for his church at their yearly barbecue station at the North Carolina State Fair. He learned firsthand what drew hungry folks in to eat and what did not, and he learned to overcome his shyness by speaking to passersby through a microphone. “You say the wrong thing to people, and they just keep on walking. You say the right thing, and they buy a Bar-B-Q sandwich and a Mountain Dew.”

His first fiction writing experience came in the second grade, when his second grade teacher asked him to write about his summer vacation. Cochran wrote a fictional story titled "The Pillsbury Doughboy." The teacher brought it to the principal's attention, and the principal called his mom and arranged for her to come to school.

In the spring of 1985, Cochran wrote his first genuine short story. It was a Western that filled twelve pages of a spiral bound notebook, and he showed it to his mom, his brother Daniel, and one of his best friends.

In the fall of 1986, he was elected class chaplain in middle school and in spring 1989, class president for his sophomore year at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh. He was re-elected in spring 1990 for his junior year. Cochran developed a track-and-field talent during high school and broke a couple of age-division state records. He eventually won the southeastern US region championship for the 1,500 meter dash and placed eleventh at the nationals (earning second team All-American status) in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In 1988, he typed and sent in a letter to Beckett Baseball Card Monthly. A mention of his name and a paraphrase from the letter was published. It was the first time Cochran wrote something, sent it somewhere, and had it published. He has said it was an important realization for him to make: that his name and something he wrote could end up in print. He was fourteen at the time.

By 1990, he had written his first science-fiction short story on his family's electric Smith-Corona typewriter. That year, he sent a type-written poem to Bantam Books and was friendlily rejected with advice.

In November 1989, Cochran was hired to work at a Carmike Cinemas theater as an usher, and within six months, he was promoted to projectionist. As a projectionist, his job involved putting together movies when they arrived at the theater. He worked with 35mm films.

In the fall of 1992, he entered East Carolina University, where he lettered on the cross country team and majored in English. It was at this point that he really began writing fiction with the intent to publish. From this point forward, Cochran was writing full time, constantly sending out work anywhere and everywhere, and filling up an old Adidas shoebox with the rejection notes.

In 1997, Stacey workshopped a chapter from his first novel The Drunk, and later, he noticed a flyer announcing a contest for the 1998 Dell Magazines Award on his English Department's bulletin board. He filled out an entry form and sent in the chapter, thinking he'd hear nothing more about it.

From August 1997 to July 2000, Cochran lived in a two-room shotgun shack in Greenville, North Carolina while attending school full time. On a cold, gray afternoon in late January 1998, he came home one day and listened to an answering-machine message from the Dell Magazines Award contest administrator letting him know he was a finalist and that he was invited to the IAFA conference in March. He attended the conference and met writers Ben Bova, Joe Haldeman, and Peter Straub (who, with Stephen King, co-wrote The Talisman and Black House).

Stacey took his undergraduate degree in the spring of 1998 and began a graduate program that same year. As a graduate student he wrote and taught classes. He worked as an editor on The Concord Saunterer, a scholarly journal. He also wrote weekly columns for the university newspaper The East Carolinian. He finished at East Carolina in 2001, receiving an M.A. degree in English.

In July 2001, he moved to Oracle, Arizona, where he completed his novel The Band in the spring of 2002, having written through the winter without heat, hot water, or sometimes money for food. By December 2002, he finished the first draft of his next novel Culpepper: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shotgun and then began working on Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone, the first draft of which he finished in May 2003.

He followed Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone with The Colorado Sequence, the first draft of which he finished in Oracle in January 2004.

While living in Oracle, Cochran became familiar with Biosphere 2, the first real-world test environment for space colonization, which inspired his dream of building a resort hotel on the Moon. "It may not happen in my lifetime," he says, "but someone will eventually actualize it. The science is in place to make it happen. We just need money, and people with vision."

In 2004 and 2005, four short stories ("The Kiribati Test," "Harvest Time," "The Cuda," and "The Con Artists") were selected as quarter-finalists for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and in October 2004, his novel Culpepper: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shotgun was selected as a finalist for the St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest.

Stacey was married in November 2004. He currently lives in Gold Canyon, Arizona.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone (November 23, 2005)
The Band (May 2004)

[edit] Collections

The Kiribati Test (September 2004, short story collection)

[edit] Merits/Awards

1998: Cochran's short story "Within the Parallax" was selected as an Honorable Mention for the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence. [6]

2004 and 2005: Short stories "The Kiribati Test," "Harvest Time," "The Cuda," and "The Con Artists" selected as quarter-finalists for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.

2004: Cochran's novel Culpepper: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shotgun was selected as a finalist for the 2004 St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest [7]