About me
Michael Copperman is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and Cultures at Michigan State University. His work has appeared in The Oxford-American, Guernica, The Sun, Creative Nonfiction, Boston Review, Salon, Gulf Coast, Triquarterly, Kenyon Review and Copper Nickel, among others, and has won awards and garnered fellowships from the Munster Literature Center, Breadloaf Writers Conference, Oregon Literary Arts, and the Oregon Arts Commission. His memoir Teacher: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta (University Press of Mississippi 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 Oregon Book Award in CNF.
Copperman was once one of the best wrestlers in the Western United States, and attended Stanford on wrestling scholarship. His new book Seeking Kenny: A Wrestler's Journey is about the extremes of the American subculture of wrestling as seen through the story of five-time national champion Kenny Cox’s pilgrimage deep into the wilderness of Kauai’s Na Pali Coast (University of Iowa Press 2026).
