Join us on Tuesday, December 2 at 7 PM as Martha Cooley talks about her new book, My Little Donkey: And Other Essays. She will be joined in conversation by Jennifer Acker.
About the Book
A collection of searching, curious, and surprising essays catalyzed by the author's move in her sixties to a small Italian village, exploring selfhood, coincidence, inheritance, and the impermanence of identityIn 2021, in her mid-sixties, Martha Cooley moved with her husband from the United States to Castiglione del Terziere, a village in northernmost Tuscany. Prompted by this relocation, the essays in My Little Donkey chronicle her encounters with people, animals, the past, and herself as she reckons with the fallout of a major life-change.Following curiosity where it leads, Cooley delves into music and silence, the vagaries of history, the complexity of familial legacies, and the presence and power of animals in human lives. With its spirited examinations of uncanny coincidences and chance events, My Little Donkey’s varied essays offer the vivid pleasures of story combined with the provocations of a writer looking behind the curtain of appearances, intent on honest assessments of what she sees and feels. Whimsical yet at the same time intellectually and emotionally bold, these essays tackle the conundrum of time’s passage: how to adapt, pay attention, embrace contradiction, and enjoy the ride?
About the Author
MARTHA COOLEY is the author of three novels—The Archivist (a national bestseller published in a dozen foreign markets), Thirty-Three Swoons, and Buy Me Love—and the memoir Guesswork. Her short fiction, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous literary journals.
About Jennifer Acker
Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, an honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is an Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Daily, the Washington Post, and n+1, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest at Amherst College. Her second novel, Surrender, will be released in April 2026 from Delphinium Books.
