FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 1, 2011
Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium to feature Judith Ortiz Cofer
COLUMBUS, Miss. -- The 23rd annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium will feature author Judith Ortiz Cofer as keynote speaker on Thursday, Oct. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in Rent Auditorium of Whitfield Hall on the campus of Mississippi University for Women.
Cofer has published 12 books of essays, fiction, young adult fiction and poetry, including “Reaching for the Mainland,” “The Latin Deli,” “A Love Story Beginning in Spanish,” and this year “Lessons from a Writer’s Life,” and “If I Could Fly.” She will read from new and published work.
She was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the United States when she was 4 and her family came to Patterson, N.J. At the age of 15, she moved to Georgia, where she attended high school and college, and where she is now Regents and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. She was recently inducted into the Georgia Writers’ Hall of Fame and included in the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
This year’s Symposium theme is “Crossing Cultures in the South: ‘into the lovely room full of strangers,’” which is drawn on a quote from Welty’s story “The Bride of Innisfallen.” As part of the theme we celebrate the role of international writers in Southern literature and the influence of other cultures on Southern writers.
The three-day event, which is free and open to the public, will continue on Friday, Oct. 21, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, Oct. 22, 8:30 a.m. to noon, with readings by 11 other writers, including Sefi Atta, Jean W. Cash, Joy Castro, Ann Fisher-Wirth, MUW alumna Minrose Gwin, Randall Horton, Pauline Kaldas, Michael Kardos, Michael F. Smith, Latha Viswanathan and John Jianqing Zheng.
More information can be found on the Welty Symposium website www.muw.edu/welty or by contacting the director, Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg, at (662)329-7386. The Eudora Welty Symposium is also on Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter (@WeltySymposium).
Contact: Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg
Mississippi University for Women
Dept. of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy
1100 College St., P.O. Box MUW-1634
Columbus MS 39701
662-329-7169, fax 662-329-7387
kdunkelberg@as.muw.edu
