Judith Ortiz Cofer

Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing

Department of English
University of Georgia
Athens, GA  30602

Phone: (706) 542-1261
Email: jocofer@uga.edu

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Photo by Peter Frey, University of Georgia*


SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Judith Ortiz Cofer is 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).  Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Glamour and other journals. Her work 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.

Professor Cofer has received numerous awards and honors for her writing.  Most recently, The Latin Deli was selected for the Georgia Center for the Book’s Georgia Top 25 Reading List, a reading list composed of books set in Georgia or written by a resident or former resident of the state.  Also in 2005, Call Me Maria was selected as one of two texts to receive Honorable Mention for the Américas Award.  Sponsored by the National Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, The Américas Award is awarded to U.S. published titles that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.  The Meaning of Consuelo was selected as one of two winners of the Américas Award in 2003.  This novel was also included on the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age 2004 List." 

Professor Cofer's Young Adult short story collection, An Island Like You, received the inaugural Pura Belpré Prize from the American Library Association in 1996, as well as several other awards in Young Adult literature.  In addition, Professor Cofer has received over 30 fellowships and grants, including awards from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, the University of Georgia Center for the Humanities and Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  She received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Lehman University, New York, in 2007.

Judith Ortiz Cofer is currently the Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.   She lives in Athens, Georgia and Louisville, Georgia with her husband, John Cofer, a fellow educator.

*To download a high resolution copy of this photo, visit the following site:  http://www.photo.alumni.uga.edu/photohome.htm.  Click on "Search News Photos" and enter Subject Name "Cofer."

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last updated 21 October 2007.  pages maintained by Aghigh Ebrahimi.  please contact web editor with comments or questions.