Elizabeth Cohen
author, poet, activist, writing coach
Writer, editor, journalist, mama, and dog guardian Elizabeth Cohen hails from New Mexico. New stories can be read in The Coachella Review, Spotlong Review, Cagibi, Minyan Magazine, Confetti, Persimmon Tree, and other literary venues. Her poems have been recently published in Blue Mesa, San Antonio Review, A Room of Her Own; Crosswinds, Yale Review, and anthologies such as Love in the Original Language, Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975; Ink; Sonia Sanchez at 90; and the forthcoming Climate Change Chronicles. She is the author of five books of poetry, a celebrated memoir, a book of short stories, and a co-authored book of essays with Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord, the first Navajo woman surgeon. Her newest book of poems, Mermaids of Albuquerque, drops this November!
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She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia and recently retired from her position as an associate professor of English from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh to work on her writing and as a full-time writing coach with her boutique coaching business, BookMagick (www.bookcoachmagick.com).
She serves on the editorial board of Mnemosyne, a boutique publisher of memoirs by women, an imprint of Saint Julian Press, in Houston, Texas; on the board and as an editor for High Desert Haint, a Santa Fe publisher, and served on the board of the North Star Museum of the Underground Railroad, among other associations. She edits and runs the online magazine Memoirabilia (coming soon!).
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She loves books and writing them. She loves a tough freelance journalism assignment she can dig into. She likes to draw, although she is pretty bad at it. She loves to go to far flung places and then write about them.
She stands for things. A peace advocate, she stands for fair pay, equal rights, reproductive rights, queer and trans rights, diversity, feminism, preserving the natural places of the planet, protecting the animals.
She volunteers at Barrett House, a women's shelter in Albuquerque where she runs writing workshops. She works with special needs children in the Albuquerque Public Schools.
She loves kids, dogs, and horses. She loves toast.
That about covers it.
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Former Editor of Saranac Review
Visiting Professor WCSU
MFA Mentor, WCSU
SUNY Plattsburgh Associate Professor
Gotham Writers Workshops Instructor
Book Reviewer (American Book Review, @theinkwell)
MacDowell Fellow
Columbia University MFA
UNM BA, Magna Cum Laude,
Oprah Magazine Book-of-the-Week
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a bit about me
la Laylita
my history
I still remember my first poem:
Fireplace, fireplace, oh so warm.
Lots of flies swarm by you
Oh, Mr. Fireplace
Yup. I was an elementary school insect poet.
By middle school, I expanded into other genres: little essays. a short novel about a boy who stole the moon.
In highschool, at Sandia Prep (the Sandia School) in Albuquerque, I wrote over two hundred sonnets expressing my love of New Mexico and a boy named Michael. I edited my school paper, and wrote the poems that meandered through the school yearbook my senior year.
I continued my poetic experiment in college, edited my college literary magazine, Conceptions Southwest, and wrote art and film reviews for the college paper, The Daily Lobo (while pasting it up at night for cash).
Grad school: Columbia School of the Arts. I was lucky to work with super brilliant folks (Daniel Halpern! Sharon Olds!) and I became an editor for several publications. I wrote my first book of poetry, Impossible Furniture.
Post Grad: First came publishing; I worked for newspapers and magazines (The New York Times, The NY Post, Gannett). Then came academia and 18 years teaching college kids. I wrote nine books in all; I cared for my parents until they died, and I raised a girl.
Now: I work with sheltered homeless women and special needs children. I take writers on awesome retreats and I coach memoirists one-on-one. I freelance. I stand up for things and fight for other things.
Best of all, I am back home in New Mexico.
Writing.
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my vision
I still have the writing obsession of that little girl rhapsodizing about the fly. But I am obsessed with other things now as well.
I volunteer at Barrett House (a women's shelter in Albuquerque), and work in the Albuquerque Public Schools with special needs children. I foster dogs. I spend energy on numerous causes-- environmental and social, trying to help keep the planet rolling, guns in control, and books on shelves.
I am looking for ways to play a role in the coming election, as it is so imperative, possibly canvassing for a candidate in my district. I would also like to play a role in addressing global peacemaking. That's a tough one. Humanity seems hell bent on destroying itself. Our work on the earth is so important, we have to pay attention to suffering-- human, animal and environmental.
But mostly (I'll just say it), I am obsessed with words.
Writing, writing, writing. Helping other writers. I take writers on retreats to beautiful places (go to bookcoachmagick.com and click "retreats" for the one coming up in October in Bordeaux, France!), and I am an editor for a small press that publishes women's memoirs, Mnemosyne.
What else? The rest of my life is consumed by my darling daughter, Ava, my nephew, Dillion, and my dog, Layla.
Of course.
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