Molly Cooney

Molly teaches at Minneapolis College (MCTC). She is a queer writer, and mama who spends as much time as possible outdoors. She's been an educator for 25 years, most of which have been spent in the hallways of higher education, previously at the University of Arizona. She's also taught youth in various contexts, including remote Arctic tundra, desert canyonlands, and high-altitude mountain ranges. As a writer, she primarily writes creative nonfiction essays and memoir about leading wilderness expeditions, navigating life with a trans-partner, parenting a neurodiverse, nonbinary child, and trying to raise socially engaged, anti-racist kids. Some of her writing can be found in The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, and The Pushcart Prize XLIII: Best of the Small Presses Anthology. She lives with her spouse, two young kids, a cat and dog, and an ambitious crew of carpenter ants in a 108-year-old house in South Minneapolis. Whether she's in the garden coaxing her grandmother’s raspberry bushes back to life or teaching her kids to kayak on the Mississippi, she chooses outdoor adventures every day that she possibly can. Turns out, a toddler in snowshoes is actually the cutest thing on the planet.