Judith Ortiz Cofer, Regents and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at UGA, has released Lessons from a Writer’s Life: Readings and Resources for Teachers and Students. This book can be used as a textbook and resource for teachers of grades 6-12.
The book contains stories and poems drawn from Cofer’s childhood in Puerto Rico and her self-invention as an American writer and teacher.
In a practical resource section in the back of the book, Cofer speaks about the craft of writing and shares the tools she has forged to generate ideas and help her writing speak the truth more strongly and clearly. Sections include “What I Know,” “Writers Begin in Memory,” “Writers Begin in Images,” “Dreams and Poetry” and “Writers Begin in the Words of Others.” Book resources cover “The Craft of Writing and Why It Matters,” “Judith Ortiz Cofer’s Writing Tools for Students and Teachers” and “How I Use Judith Ortiz Cofer’s Work in the Classroom.”
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1989 novel The Line of the Sun, Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2010. She is a critically-acclaimed and widely-published poet, novelist and essayist. She writes extensively about the experience of being Puerto Rican and her identity as a woman and writer in the U.S.