the poem I wrote for my daughter is a warning that to deny your heritage is to deny half of your humanity. - Judith Ortiz Cofer

About Judith Ortiz Cofer

Judith Ortiz Cofer (February 24, 1952 – December 30, 2016) was a Puerto Rican writer. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the University's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.