Our Team
Desiree Cooper - WRITER AND PRODUCER
Desiree Cooper is a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow and former attorney. For more than a decade, she penned an award-winning column for the Detroit Free Press, during which she received two Pulitzer Prize nominations. Her debut collection of flash fiction, Know the Mother, is a 2017 Michigan Notable Book that has won numerous awards, including the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award. Cooper’s flash fiction has appeared in The Best Small Fictions 2018, Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, Electric Literature, COG Magazine, and in the forthcoming Choice Words: Writers on Abortion. Her essay, “We Have Lost Too Many Wigs,” was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2019. In 2018, she wrote, produced and co-directed “The Choice,” a short film about reproductive rights based upon her flash fiction story, “First Response.” The film has won several awards, including a 2019 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Berlin Flash Film Festival, and Award of Merit, 2019 Best Shorts Competition, California. http://www.descooper.com/
Aaron Schillinger - Director AND Producer
Aaron Schillinger is an award-winning filmmaker whose directorial debut is Boblo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale (2022). The documentary, which the Detroit Metrotimes called “a magical mystery boat ride of a film,” is narrated by Motown Legend Martha Reeves, and was selected as the opening night film of the 2021 Freep Film Festival where it won the ‘Hometown Talent’ award. The film went on to play at festivals across the country and was released theatrically across the Great Lakes region. It is distributed by PBS. Aaron is also cofounder of the Sarah E. Ray Project, an organization shining a light on the forgotten story of a Detroit civil rights pioneer. Aaron graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Ferndale, Michigan, with his wife and an ornery macaw named Sinbad.. https://www.bobloboatsfilm.com/