Robert Crooke

Robert Crooke is a journalist, media executive, teacher, and author. He began his career as a sports reporter and columnist for the Newhouse-owned Long Island Daily Press, and subsequently held positions as a reporter and editor with several regional and national business publications, before moving into account management at Howard J. Rubenstein Associates, the New York public relations firm. He served for 13 years as North American press spokesman for Reuters, the international news group and, for 14 years, as head of financial media relations in the US division of Makinson Cowell, the UK capital markets advisory firm, which was acquired by KPMG in 2013 and became part of Lazard in 2020. He has lectured at the University of Connecticut, the University of Nebraska, New York University, and Suffolk County Community College. He has contributed book reviews and critical essays to Heavy Feather Review and Exacting Clam. His poetry has been published in the West Hills Review: A Walt Whitman Journal, and his short fiction has appeared in The Paragon Journal, Literary Orphans Journal, and Linden Avenue Literary Journal. The Chastened Heart was featured by the editors of KIRKUS REVIEWS as one of their favorite independently-published novels of 2014. The Earth and Its Sorrows (2010), Sunrise (2007), and American Family (2004) also received generous critical praise. His latest novel, Letting the House Go, was published in August 2022 by Unsolicited Press (Portland, OR), and has earned distinction as a 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award Category Finalist. A compelling new sequel, entitled Across the Endless Night, will be published by Unsolicited Press on August 4, 2026. He and his wife reside in Bridgewater, CT.