Background
Joe Cottonwood was born August 19, 1947. Cottonwood grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. His mother and father were both scientists.
(Tired of his Vietnam veteran father's moodiness, depressi...)
Tired of his Vietnam veteran father's moodiness, depression, and violent flashbacks, Danny is determined to make it on his own, and he soon learns a lesson about life's important choices.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590450670/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Boone Barnaby and his two best friends learn about the ad...)
Boone Barnaby and his two best friends learn about the adult version of truth and justice through their adventures in a small California town
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590435477/?tag=2022091-20
1992
("While their parents attend a World Series game in San Fr...)
"While their parents attend a World Series game in San Francisco, Franny, 14, and her once-best friend Jennie, now a tattooed stranger wearing headphones, are babysitting her bratty brother Sidney. Clearly, getting reacquainted with Jennie, who moved away when her parents divorced years before, will be a disaster. But when the ground starts shaking their Loma Prieta home, Franny and her brother are plunged into a real crisis situation. In a flash, blood-and-gore loving Sidney becomes a terrified little boy. Jennie sheds her flaky facade to display competent first-aid skills and Franny finds herself calmly able to follow the preparation instructions drilled into her over the years. The hours and days after the quake are a time in which the children and their neighbors fumble toward survival, showing themselves to be 'the best kind of hero...an everyday sort.' With unsettling realism, Franny describes the aftershocks, the struggle to rebuild homes and lives, the triumphs of restoring basic services, and the steps she and her family take to re-establish their lives. Cottonwood spins his tale with great immediacy and power. Characters and relationships are multidimensional and convincing. Readers who enjoy survival and disaster stories will find this one inspiring and thought-provoking."—School Library Journal "Based on California's 1989 earthquake, this survival story fleshes out the newspaper headlines in fascinating detail. Cottonwood, himself a survivor of the earthquake, chronicles the nightmarish ordeal through the eyes of 14-year-old Fran. While her parents attend the World Series, Fran stays home with her bratty brother, Sidney, and Jennie, a visiting friend. Their reunion is awkward until the earthquake shakes them into action: they lift a Volkswagen off a neighbor, turn off combustible propane tanks, and help at the school emergency shelter. The experience builds bridges between the trio and offers Fran the bittersweet challenge of being in charge until her parents return safely home. There are surreal details--'when the water heater fell out [of the closet] . . . for a weird moment it looked like a mummy falling out of a coffin' --and the triviality of a 'Go Cheetahs' sign at Fran's school mark the shift in perspective that accompanies a major seismic shift. Grippingly told, this story will add depth to any study of earthquakes."—Booklist
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009OKD9H8/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(Kirkus Review selection as "Best Books of 2014," "Best Me...)
Kirkus Review selection as "Best Books of 2014," "Best Memoir," and "Best Off-the-Beaten-Track." Indie Discovery Award Winner! "Best Nonfiction Book of 2014" A carpenter can fix the house. But how do you fix a broken home? In this award-winning memoir, author and contractor Joe Cottonwood recalls a lifetime making repairs. With each job, he enters somebody's private world, revealing a life. Or changing it. Everybody needs a little help, a little warmth: the blonde in the hot tub--the dying billionaire--the wounded war vet--the rebel teen-- the lonely French teacher--and the author himself. Here's good hard work -- and some bad work, too. Learn the taste of sewage, the jolt of a live wire. Drive to the emergency clinic with a wooden stake through your hand. Feel the satisfaction of work that is honest, simple, strong--sometimes perfect. "A house is alive. It breathes. It expands and contracts. It ages. Sometimes it falls sick, and then I'm a doctor of houses. I probe intimate cavities. I study the bones, the nerves, the flesh of an old house where generations of remodels have built upon themselves. The structure tells a story: tragedy, comedy, or heartwarming family drama as day-to-day life slowly, inexorably leaves an imprint over the attic, on the walls, under the sink--or in the crawlspace." --From 99 Jobs Ninety-nine stories that are gritty, funny, wise. And always deeply humane.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615909442/?tag=2022091-20
2013
(With a keen eye and a big heart, Joe Cottonwood writes of...)
With a keen eye and a big heart, Joe Cottonwood writes of the small towns and driftwood beaches of the coast. As a working carpenter, he speaks with special appreciation of trees: the giant redwoods, the powerful fir and redolent cedar. From pelicans to pumpkins, from dangerous driving to sunny hiking, from earthquakes shaking the house to seals giving birth on the beach, come for the humor, stay for the wisdom — all served with a generous helping of dogs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1985341565/?tag=2022091-20
2018
Joe Cottonwood was born August 19, 1947. Cottonwood grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. His mother and father were both scientists.
Cottonwood graduated from Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in St. Louis, in 1970, majoring in English.
Cottonwood began his career in 1968 as a computer operator in St. Louis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Mountain View, California. Since 1976 Cottonwood has worked in the building trades as carpenter, plumber, and electrician and eventually became a general contractor doing house repairs. This year he also started his career as a writer.
Cottonwood is the co-host of a La Honda tradition known as Lit Night, which is a monthly literary gathering in a bar with an open mic for locals to read their own or other people's works before a live, somewhat lubricated audience.
("While their parents attend a World Series game in San Fr...)
2012(Tired of his Vietnam veteran father's moodiness, depressi...)
1992(Boone Barnaby and his two best friends learn about the ad...)
1992(With a keen eye and a big heart, Joe Cottonwood writes of...)
2018(Kirkus Review selection as "Best Books of 2014," "Best Me...)
2013
Joe Cottonwood married an occupational therapist in 1969. The couple have children.
