Photo Credit: The University of Georgia

The University of Georgia will hold a memorial service Friday, Jan. 27 for Judith Ortiz Cofer, an award-winning author, poet and professor who died of cancer at her Jackson County home Dec. 30.

Ortiz Cofer was born in Puerto Rico in 1952. Her family moved to New Jersey in 1956, then to Augusta, GA when she was 15. She taught English and creative writing at UGA for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2013.

Ortiz Cofer was known for her prose and poetry about growing up Puerto Rican and being torn culturally between the mainland U.S. and her traditional family. Her 1989 novel The Line of the Sun was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2010.

The memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. at The Chapel, with a reception following at the Demosthenian Hall.