Kyra Wilson Cook
Instructor
About Kyra
Kyra Wilson Cook is a mother, entrepreneur and sometimes-preacher living in Maryland. She spends her time gathering community, contemplating the possible, discerning truth, and imagining the future—as much as she can in fiction. A native Marylander who spent 17 years in Massachusetts, Kyra often sets her stories in New England, but writes them with her Southern cadence and Mid-Atlantic worldview. In her fiction, she seeks to write stories featuring children of color who can traverse many worlds with the savvy to code-switch, challenge, and triumph as they go. She writes under multiple pen names, including K. Onley for middle-grade and K. W. Onley for adult fiction. Kyra is a proud graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She studied Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park’s Do Good Institute. She is a graduate of Grub Street’s Short Story Incubator and has enjoyed taking many workshops through Grub Street. She’s also attended workshops through One Story and the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Kyra is a member of the We Need Diverse Books Black Revisions Workshop 2022 cohort and the Viable Paradise 2022 Cohort. Kyra currently serves on the Advisory Board of the upcoming Gertrude Conference in California in 2024. She is also a former board member of The Writers’ Loft, a writing community in Hudson, Massachusetts. When she is not leading or writing, Kyra knits, quilts, and embroiders.
