Travis Cohen Acosta

Writer & photographer | Perpetual student, occasionally employed | MSW ‘20/MFA '25 | PhD ~'30 | Born and raised in Miami 🦩🇨🇺🦎 |

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Hi. Should I make more use of this? I thought about posting acceptances and rejections here, and maybe the ocasional note about things that bother me/give me the ick in submittable as an editor. I could also post pictures of food and maybe cats. Does anyone want this?

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

@friendlypoet AWP was a whole week of ships passing in the night. Sad to have missed you. See you at the next one in Kansas City, I guess

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Just a reminder to send pizza money to your journo friends or buy them a cup of coffee. Anyone that spends their time in a newsroom has a very long day ahead of them and they don’t get nearly enough credit for how hard they work on election day or how important that work is.

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Got new a version of my query I’m rly happy with, a new beg. for a #WIP that I’ve been dying to get back to & a timeline for my MFA thesis/2nd book. Looking forward to all the agents opening up for queries tmrw. September va ser candela bbs🔥#amquerying #writingcommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Just deleted a pissed off tweet about a professor. Is twitter just a place where my angry emails go to die? #WritingCommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, but I'm fairly sure that's true of anyone trying to find a home for their first book. I just know this is a good book and that's enough for me to keep trying. #WritingCommunity #amquerying

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

37 queries, 15 stock rejections, 22...? I got a rejection yesterday from an agent I was really hopeful about being a good fit and it hit hard. I was up till 4 AM obsessing over what I haven't revised or rewritten or polished or perfected enough #WritingCommunity #amquerying

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

This AM I got quotes on reedsy for query feedback. A former agent told me she'd be happy to work w/me but that 15 might be premature as she's had clients get 150+ rejections before a query stuck. In no way did this information make me feel better #WritingCommunity #amquerying

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

I always find it helpful to have art around when I’m working. I also have a picture of a duck on my desk that @stein_katherine sent in the mail from London. What do you keep around your workspace? #WritingCommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Of the 50 pgs I read for my MFA orientation, the piece of info that stood out was a reluctantly shared study abt nicotine’s positive effects on recall & mental acuity. On a related note, I suddenly feel much better abt chain-smoking when I get stuck in a story #WritingCommnunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Also, does anybody else ever get upset by a beautifully poignant passage that just makes you say, “God damn it, I wish I’d written that”? James Baldwin makes me feel that way more often than I’d like to admit. #writingcommmunity #jamesbaldwin

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Btw dear prospective agents - I have lots of hastily drafted texts meant for my dearest friends, too, so there’s no offense intended. Plz don’t get mad at me. Kthxbye

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Does anyone else have a bank of pissy draft tweets written after receiving agent rejections that you don’t post cause you’re afraid of other agents seeing it and shaking their head at their desks as they write your name on an imaginary blacklist? #amquerying #WritingCommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Still, I feel optimistic about feeling optimistic. Having hope in spite of rejections is better than having none at all, which I’m plenty familiar with. It’s just a matter of time. Going to send some more queries & get back to a short story #wip ✌️#WritingCommunity #amquerying

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Yesterday my wife and I got into differentiating between commercial, upmarket, commercial upmarket, literary, women’s literary, and contemporary fiction. She said it sounds stressful and I confirmed that that is, in fact, how I’d describe the process #amquerying #WritingCommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

@itsjeanettechoe I got back on twitter 2 days ago to try and make the most out of it while I #amquerying for my first book. I’ve spent about 197 hours on here since.

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

But I’m curious what other #writers and #readers think about creating characters who are members of a community or population you see and support but don’t necessarily belong to? #Representation? #Inclusion? #Exploitation? Interested in opinions in the #WritingCommunity

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

Mel Brooks told a story about calling Richard Pryor to ‘bless the N-word’ in the script for Blazing Saddles. I wrote a short story I’m editing that features a gay MC. As a straight male, I’ve reached out to friends in the LGBTQ+ community to beta read #writingcommunity (cont. ->)

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

The number of times I check my email per hour has increased exponentially since I started querying. The MS requests have not yet corresponded with this uptick. Going back to #writing this short story about would-be cowboys in Miami now✌️#writingcommunity #amquerying

[Travis Cohen Acosta @travisjcohen]

@L_Smith_Writer First #writerslift - Miami writer, #amquerying for my 1st book, a finished #lf novel. 2nd is a #WIP - collection of short stories w/the loose theme of memory inspired by Magritte’s “Treachery of Images,” 2 of which have been published and are on my feed. thanks! ✌️