Press release:
WCU to host acclaimed Latina writer for reading, campus discussion
CULLOWHEE – Judith Ortiz Cofer, an acclaimed Latina novelist, poet and essayist, will visit Western Carolina University for a lecture and reading at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in the theater of the A.K. Hinds University Center.
She will lead an open discussion with students from 11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. in the permanent gallery of WCU’s Fine Art Museum on Wednesday, April 6. Both campus events are free and open to the public.
Cofer was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Patterson, New Jersey, and is considered a leading literary voice for depicting the Puerto Rican immigrant experience. An O. Henry Prize winner and Georgia Writers Hall of Fame inductee, she is Emeritus Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. She is a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and received a fellowship with the National Endowment for the Arts for poetry. She is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, several books of poetry, essays and memoirs, as well as books for children.
For more information, contact Melissa Birkhofer, lecturer in WCU’s Department of English, at mdbirkhofer@wcu.edu. Her awards include grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation and the Georgia Council for the Arts, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for poetry, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Florida Fine Arts Council.
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