Sarah Cortez

Teacher, poet, and police officer, Sarah Cortez divides her time between diverse professions in Houston, the city of her birth and a place she holds close to her heart. Cortez blends together her different careers by teaching poetry and creative writing and allowing her occupation as a police officer to influence her literary style. The title of her first published collection of poetry, How to Undress a Cop (Arte Público Press, 2000), is a testament to this truth.

Cortez teaches writing at the University of Houston as a Visiting Scholar. The class that she will be teaching during the Spring 2002 semester is Latino Visions of the City, a unique writing course that will offer students the opportunity to examine urban related poetry and create their own poetic expressions. She also teaches Writing the Memoir, a Wednesday evening course at the C.G. Jung Educational Center located in Houston's museum district.

Cortez received the 1999 PEN Texas Literary Award in Poetry and placed as a semi-finalist in the 2000 Fourteenth Annual Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry. For the present year, one of her poems, "Glance," was chosen to be featured in Houston METRO buses as part of the nationwide program, "Poetry in Motion."

-- Carmen Peña