Sarah Cortez

Sarah Cortez, president and founder of Catholic Literary Arts, is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her awards and honors are numerous, including the PEN Texas Award in Poetry, Southwest Book of the Year, Skipping Stones Honor Award in Children’s Literature, numerous first and second prizes awarded by the National Federation of Press Women in the categories of Specialty Articles, Verse, and Personal Essay. She won numerous awards from Press Women in Texas in categories of both creative writing and journalism. She also won the first prize in editing from the National Federation of Press Women. She has 17 published books, and her poems, essays, book reviews, interviews, and short stories are anthologized and published in journals, such as Southwestern American Literature, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, Rattle, The Sun, New Verse Review, Literary Matters, and many others.  Recently anthologized in The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse, she was a contributing editor for Catholic Arts Today and is the international arts columnist for St. Austin Review. She writes for National Catholic Register and Texas Catholic Herald. She is a developmental editor for several publishers, and is founder and president of Catholic Literary Arts, a national community of faith-filled educators and writers dedicated to furthering creative writing skills. Her most recent books published are The Living Fire: Contemporary Catholic Writers for the Classroom with co-editor Lesley Clinton (Wiseblood Books, 2025). She founded and curates the popular “Poetry For Your Soul” radio features broadcast through the Guadalupe Radio Network.