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Elizabeth Cohen
poet, author, writing coach, editor
photo by Torunn Aberle
I am a New Mexican poet, editor and author, running a boutique book coaching business, BookCoachMagick, offering everything from one-on-one intensive manuscript coaching and writing services, to global writing retreat experiences. I also edit Memoirabilia, an online memoir journal and serve as editorial consultant for Mnemosyne Books, a womens memoir imprint.
In addition to these activities, I write poetry, fiction and essays. New stories and works can be read in The Coachella Review, Spotlong Review, Cagibi, Minyan Magazine, Confetti, Persimmon Tree, Brussels Review, Reed Magazine, and other literary venues. My poems have been recently published in Blue Mesa, San Antonio Review, A Room of Her Own; Mid Atlantic Review, 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; Rising From the Ashes: Musings on Menopause, edited by Lisa Seidlarz, Too Much Love: Stories of Mothering, edited by Nitza Agam, and the forthcoming Climate Change Chronicles. In addition, I am the author of six books of poetry, a celebrated memoir, a book of short stories, and The Scalpel and The Silver Bear, a co-authored book of essays with Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord, the first Navajo woman surgeon, recently (March 2025) chosen by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best books about women in science. And coming in 2027, a new book of poetry, All the Beautiful Everything, from Kelsay Press.!
Mermaids of Albuquerque, from Saint Julian Press, a finalist
in the 2025 New Mexico Book Awards contest.
I have an MFA in creative writing/poetry from Columbia University and recently retired from my position as an associate professor of English from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh to work on my writing and as a full-time writing coach and editor/publisher, returning to my beloved home state of New Mexico.
In addition to serving on the editorial board of Mnemosyne, I am on the board and edit for High Desert Haint, a Santa Fe publisher and formerly served on the board of the North Star Museum of the Underground Railroad, among other associations. I teach creative writing classes with Gotham Writers Workshops in New York City.
I love books and writing them. I love a tough freelance journalism assignment I can dig into. I like to draw, although I am pretty bad at it. I love to go to far flung places and then write about them.
A peace advocate, I stand for fair pay, equal rights, reproductive rights, queer and trans rights, diversity, feminism, preserving the natural places of the planet, and protecting the animals.
I have volunteered at Barrett House, a women's shelter in Albuquerque where I run writing workshops. I work with special needs children in the Albuquerque Public Schools.
I love kids, dogs, and horses. I love black coffee and rye toast.
That about covers it.
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
Jeri Desrochers, Braceros Series Lettuce, 2012, oil on canvas. Collection of New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. Gift of Jeri Desrochers (2020.011.2).
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum (Las Cruces, NM).
Adult Category Winner
The Sound of One Hand Shouting
by Elizabeth Cohen
You can hear colors sometimes.
Lean over. Put your ear to the paint.
Shut your eyes.
That’s the sound of orange becoming a hat.
Of blue becoming wrinkles in a shirt.
Specks of green, a head of lettuce.
That sound is the sound of colors breathing.
The sound of sweat becoming food.
The sound of paint becoming a field
Into the labor that feeds us.
Turning a slash of white into a slicing knife.
That is the sound of colors shouting.
The sound of yourself believing.
