Special issue on Puerto Rican-born and Latina writer Judith Ortiz Cofer (1952-2016)

Judith Ortiz Cofer was a literary pioneer; in the early eighties, she headed the first generation of Latina writers to attract the attention of university and commercial publishing houses in the United States. Her work spans literary genres: poetry, fiction (both the novel and the short story), the essay and creative non-fiction essay, and children’s literature.

This special issue will trace Ortiz Cofer’s literary legacy. A writer who broke new literary and critical grounds and an acclaimed poet and prose writer solidly rooted in a bi-cultural background, Ortiz Cofer proudly claimed, “I have earned the right to call myself a Southern Latina writer.” We seek essays that examine the geographical and cultural convergences within Ortiz Cofer’s work and that reflect upon her life, both as a Puerto Rican-born author, who drew from her childhood memories growing in Hormigueros, and as a full-fledged Latina activist and professor of English at the University of Georgia, who was committed to gender and economic issues affecting Latino communities.

Submission deadline: June 1st
Length: Manuscripts should be between 6,500 and 8,000 words
Format: 8th edition of the MLA Handbook. (Please contact editors for the “SAR Style Sheet for Authors of Manuscripts.”)

Submit your essays or address any questions to co-editors Lorraine M. López, Vanderbilt University, at lorraine.lopez@vanderbilt.edu and Rafael Ocasio, Agnes Scott College, at rocasio@agnesscott.edu.