An Interview with Alan Cohen, author of Hijacked

Born in the Bronx, Alan Cohen spent his formative years on Long Island, reading, writing, bicycle riding; trips to the city, days spent at the beaches, sports on the neighborhood streets, three high school letters; band and chorus, math league, summer camps; reading comics, playing Risk and poker and squabbling with friends. Graduated from Vassar College, went to UC Davis Medical School (spent six months in the UK his senior year, in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London), did his internship in Boston, and his internal medicine residency in Hawaii, and began his working life as medical director of an inner city clinic in Davenport, IA.

He then was a consultant to a group of family practitioners in Amherst; the president of the executive committee of the medical staff in Chicopee/Springfield, Massachusetts; assistant professor at the Yale Health Plan, taking care of students and Yale employees, and their families, and teaching students and residents; associate program director at the VA in Danville and University of Illinois in Champaign, teaching one hundred students and residents for a month each during those four years; chief of primary care at the VA in Fresno; acting chief of staff in Marion, IL; and, finally, chief of primary care at the VA in Roseburg/Eugene, Oregon.

During his medical residency in Honolulu, he and his wife Anita met over the heart monitors, and they have been happily married for forty-six years. They opened, owned, and operated The Chocolate Bakery in Northampton, Massachusetts. She had a career as an RN in a variety of venues and roles; and she has been an artist all her life. She has provided the artwork for the covers of all four of his books.

Since retirement, he has been publishing some of the various things he has written over the years. His poetry has appeared in nearly one hundred venues; he has had two letters to the editor in both Poetry magazine and The New Yorker and has published medical articles and essays concerning current affairs. While working in Chicopee, he sponsored a thematic contest for poems addressing nuclear weapons and then published a book of those poems, The Beast in a Cage of Words, working with Donald Junkins and Joanne Gates. In 2023, he had Easy in Harness: A Productive Approach to Hiring a Good Manager published; in 2024, Taxonomic Vignettes, a book of poetry; and Inferno, a novel, in 2025. All three had highly positive feedback from reviewers and readers.

---

---

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

It was only when I was forty pages from the end that I found the title. I’d had a variety of names previously but I wanted the title to communicate what was in the book.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

My wife has contributed the artwork for the covers of all five of my published books and I love her painting. Ronaldo has designed the covers for the four with Atmosphere and they’ve all been outstanding. Still, I was a little disappointed with the softcover. On the other hand, the hardcover was perfect. Ronaldo outdid himself this time—he got the relation between the paintings just right.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I saw polls indicating that my fellow Americans saw government as a greater threat than big business and that they thought CEOs of large corporations would make good candidates for high office. That got me started. My research made it clear that something had changed in the mid-1970s, that inequality had been growing ever since and that most people alive today had never seen a good government (approval had dropped from seventy percent or more to twenty percent or less from 1973 to the present). I was particularly impressed when I read The Big Myth by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, and Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud by Tom Mueller, but there were many wonderful monographs and articles that helped me in my quest to clarify the causes of many of our present dilemmas and how to address them.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

As noted in my bio, I had a demanding and satisfying career as a doctor and a teacher and manager of medicine before I retired.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The reading for it, the writing of it, and the work on the revisions.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Due to the evolution of our country’s laws and practices over the past fifty years, neither the Democratic or Republican party is responsive to the wishes or needs of the people. The only solution is an alternative party dedicated to government of, by, and for the people and not beholden to large corporations and the rich.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I have started a sub stack, am working with an alternative political party, continue to write poetry, and am ready to take on whatever arises next.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

There have been hiccups along the road as Atmosphere has grown. However, I think that Atmosphere provides an excellent pathway to quality publication.

---

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.