Phil M. Cohen

Phil M. Cohen is an award-winning author and an ordained rabbi who holds a Ph.D. in Jewish thought and an MFA in fiction. He comes to his writing via a career as a rabbi and a teacher. He stands in a line of rabbis who’ve expressed themselves through fiction, including Milton Steinberg, Chaim Potok, Herbert Tarr, Joseph Telushkin, and Mark D. Angel. Nick Bones Underground, Cohen’s first novel, may be the first speculative fiction novel penned by a rabbi.

Cohen’s passion for storytelling emerges from his love of reading fiction and his commitment to the Jewish tradition. Through his education, he’s learned how to create and interpret stories, how to grapple with philosophical questions, and how to write fiction. From his rabbinic work, he’s gained insight into the world, both the physical world, and the world that lies inside us all. For Cohen, writing fiction is his attempt to grapple with both the physical and what lies inside us all.

Cohen writes for the challenge of creating characters and places, of creating voices and then hearing them rise from the page. But for him fiction is also a platform for exploration of meaning and ideas, for probing beneath the surface through the craft of the word.

He is the author of more than twenty published stories, dozens of articles and papers, and of the eBook Lucky 13. He blogs for The Times of Israel, as well as at his website, philmcohen.com. He writes flash fiction, short stories, novels, as well as all things clergy write.

Cohen lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with his wife Betsy and two dogs. He is the proud father of Elly and Talia and the incredibly proud grandfather of Elly and Arkady’s daughter, Ava Ruth.