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Writings & Interviews

Sample Articles and Essays

"A Splash of Red" (675 KB)

An essay about how, while writing novels about a homicide detective, I unwittingly moved into an apartment where my landlord had murdered his wife. In Narratively.

"Right Is Right" (50 KB)

A crime short story, included in Hardboiled Brooklyn, edited by Reed Farrel Coleman.

"On Not Writing" (5.41 MB)

An essay in Poets & Writers.

"Beyond Fight or Flight" (428 KB)

An essay about how to move past fight-or-flight reactions to get better outcomes in life, in Shambhala Sun.

"Shark Fight!" (1.75 MB)

A controversy about a shark fishing tournament, in the New York Post Page Six magazine.

"Requiem for a Dreamland" (1.54 MB)

An essay about Coney Island, in Quintessentially magazine, U.K.

"A Special Beast: Giving Readings That Work" (2.04 MB)

An essay about how to give good literary readings, in Poets & Writers.

"A Better Way to Break Up" (156 KB)

From Spirituality & Health.

"Night of the Cockroach" (120 KB)

An essay about how an encounter with a cockroach led to some thinking about how we sort the world into us versus them, in Shambhala Sun.

"12 Misconceptions About Buddhism" (824 KB)

From Spirituality & Health.

"World on a String" (297 KB)

An interview with the great singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt, in TimeOut New York.

"Imaginary Beings" (260 KB)

An essay on how imagination shapes our reality, in Spirituality & Health.

Interviews and Author Profiles

"Red Hook: A Mystery Writer's Guide to the Bricks and Bodies of the Neighborhood,"

On National Public Radio, July 28, 2009

By Robert Smith

https://www.npr.org/2009/07/28/131009145/red-hook-a-mystery-writers-guide-to-the-bricks-and-the-bodies-of-the-neighborhoo
 
"One Writer's Brooklyn: Chronicles of Crime, Boombox Abuse, and Divorce"
New York Times, Wednesday, February 6, 2008
By Michael Wilson 

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/books/06cohen.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=login

 

"Brooklyn as Melting Pot: Gabriel Cohen's Jack Leightner Novels"
Scene of the Crime, August 26, 2010
By J. Sydney Jones

https://jsydneyjones.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/brooklyn-as-melting-pot-gabriel-cohens-jack-leightner-novels/
 
Storms Can't Hurt the Sky interview on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show

https://www.wnyc.org/story/27235-detaching-from-divorce/

 

"Brooklyn, Floating Bodies Lure Crime Writer Cohen"

Profiled in a segment on National Public Radio's Morning Edition
WNYC radio, 7/28/09

https://www.npr.org/2009/07/28/106866976/brooklyn-floating-bodies-lure-crime-writer-cohen
 
Speaking about Mindfulness on The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC radio, 4/10/09

https://www.wnyc.org/story/30188-stop-thinking-start-living/

Included in Anthologies

Right Here With You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships
2011, Shambhala Publications
 
Best Buddhist Writing
2009, Shambhala Publications
 
Lost and Found: Stories from New York
Ed. by Thomas Beller
2009, W.W. Norton
 
Hard Boiled Brooklyn
Ed. by Reed Farrel Coleman,
2006, Bleak House Books