Judith Ortiz Cofer

Judith Ortiz Cofer was born in Hormigueros, a small town in Puerto Rico, and raised in Patterson, New Jersey. For many years she taught at The University of Georgia, where she was Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing, Emerita. She was the author of A Love Story Beginning in Spanish: Poems (2005); Call Me Maria (2006), a young adult novel; The Meaning of Consuelo (2003), a novel; Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer (2000), a collection of essays; An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio (1995), a collection of short stories; The Line of the Sun (1989), a novel; Silent Dancing (1990), a collection of essays and poetry; two books of poetry, Terms of Survival (1987) and Reaching for the Mainland (1987); and The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry (1993), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work appeared in The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Glamour and other journals, and has been included in numerous textbooks and anthologies including: Best American Essays 1991, The Norton Book of Women's Lives, The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, The Heath Anthology of American Literature, The Pushcart Prize, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. Judith Ortiz Cofer passed away on December 30th, 2016. Her extraordinary life and work were celebrated at The University of Georgia on January 27th, 2017.