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The confidence and literary foundations she received at Sandia Prep enabled Elizabeth Cohen ’77 to live out her dreams of being a poet.

Cohen’s latest book of poetry, Mermaids of Albuquerque, will be published in November, with readings and signing planned around town and nationally. It is her fifth book of poetry.

“In so many ways, Sandia Prep laid down the literary and scholarly foundations of my entire life,” Cohen says. 

Cohen was a tenured professor of creative writing at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh for more than a decade and taught in the MFA program at Western Connecticut State and Binghamton universities as well. Before that, she was a working journalist and wrote for the New York Times, New York Post, Gannett, and many national magazines, including People, Self, and Glamour.

Her memoir about the years she cared for her father, The Family on Beartown Road, was chosen as a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and a New York Times Notable Book of the year. Through it, Cohen became a spokesperson for the Alzheimer’s Association and traveled around the world giving talks and keynote addresses to their memberships, as well as for nursing and caregiving organizations.

Former First Lady Rosalyn Carter, an advocate for caregivers, honored Cohen’s book and invited her to tea.

Cohen earned degrees in anthropology from the University of New Mexico and film from Temple University. She holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University.

When she was a student at Prep, the school was very small and “felt like a little world unto itself,” she says. “Children were made to feel like their ideas and thoughts mattered deeply; their creative impulses had gravitas. My art teacher, Mr. Bill Masterson, made every student feel like they possessed an inner artist. My science teacher, Mrs. Degenhardt, gave us a deep respect for the natural and biological world. My history teacher, Harry Wilson, beguiled us with stories of the walk he was on with Dr. Martin Luther King to Selma, Alabama. He wasn't just our history teacher, he was history. But it was Mr. O'Leary who brought poetry into my heart, lifelong, by introducing me to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, to Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes. To this very day, these are my literary touchstones.”

Cohen’s journey to become a poet began in high school. “My Sandia Prep teacher, Mr. Jim O'Leary, actually took the opportunity to tell me he thought I was a poet. And Mr. Robert Strain made me the editor of a school literary magazine in eleventh grade. I wrote a long poem the year of my graduation that threaded through the school yearbook!”

Cohen retired in 2022 to focus on writing and running her memoir coaching business. She leads writing retreats around the world and has established a small press that publishes women’s memoirs - Mnemosyne Books. 

Mermaids of Albuquerque is about the passage of time, Cohen says. “It is about geological time; it is also about human time, and honors some of the early important women of the area; it is about seasonal time and the garden, and lastly it is about me, and my return to the place I grew up, 40 years later."