Cleveland State University will present a lecture by acclaimed author Judith Ortiz-Cofer on Saturday, October 10 from 5-6:30 p.m. in Main Classroom, room 134, located at 1899 East 22nd Street.

Ortiz-Cofer’s topic is titled “A Love Story Beginning in Spanish” and is part of Cleveland State’s 2009-2010 Cultural Crossings Lecture Series: Memories, Reflections and Recollections. The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.

Judith Ortiz Cofer is the Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. Her works span a range of literary genres, including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young adult novels. Cofer's autobiographical work often focuses on her attempts to negotiate her life between two cultures, American and Puerto Rican, and how this process informs her sensibilities as a writer. Her work also explores racism and sexism in American culture, machismo and female empowerment in Puerto Rican culture, and the challenges immigrants face in a new culture.

She is the author of A Love Story Beginning in Spanish, poems, Call Me Maria, a young adult novel; The Meaning of Consuelo, a novel; Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer, a collection of essays; The Line of the Sun, a novel; Silent Dancing, a collection of essays and poetry; two books of poetry, Terms of Survival and Reaching for the Mainland; and The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry.

Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Glamour and other journals. Her work has been included in numerous textbooks and anthologies, including Best American Essays 1991, The Norton Book of Women's Lives, The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, The Heath Anthology of American Literature, The Pushcart Prize, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.

The Meaning of Consuelo was selected as one of two winners of the 2003 Americas Award, sponsored by the National Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, for U.S. published titles that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. The novel was also included on the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age 2004 List."

A PEN/Martha Albrand Special Citation in nonfiction was awarded to her for Silent Dancing. A collection of short stories, An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio, was named a Best Book of the Year, 1995-96 by the American Library Association. La linea del sol, the Spanish translation by Elena Olazagasti-Segovia of The Line of the Sun, was published in 1997 by the University of Puerto Rico Press.

The Cultural Crossings lecture series is sponsored by Cleveland State’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. For more information, please call 216.523.7168 or visit www.csuohio.edu/class/crossings.

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