the alicia cook

I love the ocean, champagne, and hour long dramas on TNT and USA.

sketch1472216208417

Alicia is someone you pay attention to, because you just know that whatever she is creating, and putting out into the world, is going to change a life. – Megan Lawrence, Founder, Healing Hopefuls

Alicia Cook is an established writer and award-winning activist from New Jersey. She has been featured in popular media outlets, including The Asbury Park Press, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and the LA Times. Cook contributes regularly to the HuffPost, CNN, USA Today, and many more. Her best-selling, self-published, book of poetry, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately“, was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards and was later traditionally published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Her essay series exploring the direct impact addiction has on not only the user, but the family, “The Other Side of Addiction“, has gained a worldwide readership. Her efforts to combat the heroin epidemic, which include writing, appearing on podcasts, and speaking to students and their parents, caught the attention of PBS Executive Producer, Steve Rogers, who created an episode of his Emmy-nominated documentary series, “Here’s the Story” around Cook and her efforts entitled “A Family Disease.” The episode was dedicated to Cook’s cousin, Jessica, who passed away from a drug overdose in 2006. In 2017, the episode was officially selected in the New Jersey Recovery Film Festival and the Golden Door International Film Festival.

In 2017, Cook received the Special Voices Award in honor of her writing on addiction by NJTV in Trenton, NJ. That same month, Cook released a collection of essays entitled Heroin is the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to Me. The book is titled after Cook’s most popular essay, which was read over one million times in under two months.

A prolific visionary for humanitarian nonfiction and poetry, [Alicia] believes in the healing nature of writing for herself and her readers. Her work is therefore an even blend of escapism and altruism.- Billy Anania, APP