author
Frank J. Cotter
1878–1948
Known for vivid, plainspoken verse about life in Alaska, this early 20th-century writer brought frontier grit and working-class humor onto the page. His best-known book, Rhymes of a Roughneck, has endured as a lively snapshot of roughneck life and northern adventure.
1 Audiobook
Rhymes of a Roughneck
by Frank J. Cotter
About the author
Frank J. Cotter was an American writer born in 1878 and died in 1948. Reliable catalog and public-domain sources connect him with Rhymes of a Roughneck, published in Seward, Alaska, in 1918, and with The Romance of Tin, issued in Seattle in 1937.
His writing is most closely associated with Alaska and with the voice of working people. Rhymes of a Roughneck was also published under the name Pat O'Cotter, suggesting he wrote at least partly under a pen name.
Very little biographical detail about his personal life is easy to confirm from widely available sources, but his surviving books suggest a writer interested in frontier life, labor, and the everyday speech of the people he wrote about. That gives his work a direct, energetic feel that still makes it memorable.