Chris Coulson's first novel was Nothing Normal in Cork and The Midwest Hotel is his first collection of poetry. Out of the smoky haze of this production frenzy will come another novel, Red Jumbo, and his first children's book, Babies on the Run! 

And then, whatever comes next. Who knows what, but it's coming. 


Chris ("Pinehead") Coulson had a lot of jobs before writing these books; golf caddy at 13, bartender (older than 13), dishwasher, busboy, waiter, hospital orderly, morgue attendant and obituary reporter (simultaneously, had them coming and going!), newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, a Kansas City art magazine columnist and editor in chief, Cadillac salesman for three months (sold one used Chevrolet), worker in a cake decorating machine factory, movie set painter (first job, for the film Kansas City, directed by the late and great - Robert Altman) and set dresser, art department leadman, film actor and star of In the Land of Milk and Money, which toured worldwide film festivals just after the turn of the century. 

But he's always carried a 50¢ Bic Pen in his pocket. He was always writing.


On the scholastic front, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City; a double major, political science and english literature. That double major doesn't necessarily represent a career direction, but it does represent his interests at the time, plus whatever credit hours piled up at the end. 

Other activities informing and enriching Coulson's writing include a half-year homeless adventure in Boston in 1984-85, and some light jail time here and there, including the night of a spectacular (comical to the police officers on scene) drunken car crash and splash into the Meyers Circle Fountain, inside a traffic rotary along an elegant parkway in Kansas City. At the time, Coulson knew these experiences would somehow feed the sensitivity not to mention the oeuvre. 

And he always carried a 50¢ Bic Pen in his pocket. 


Coulson has lived in Milwaukee, London, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Wyoming (The Hotel Townsend In Casper), Boston and Los Angeles, and is now in Durham, North Carolina. 


(For more of Mr. Coulson's surreal, absurdist writing, don't miss his other work history at LinkedIn.)                                                                                                                               

In a cafe in Paris, fresh from surgery.