Elizabeth Coatsworth

Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (May 31, 1893 – August 31, 1986) was an American writer of fiction and poetry for children and adults. She won the 1931 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association award recognizing The Cat Who Went to Heaven as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." Coatsworth graduated from Vassar College in 1915 as salutatorian. Her daughter, Kate Barnes, also became an accomplished writer and was named the first Poet Laureate of Maine.

Coatsworth died at her home in Nobleboro on August 31, 1986. with a small archive from late in her career in the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Career

Coatsworth began her career publishing her poetry in magazines. Her first book was a poetry collection for adults, Fox Footprints (1912). A conversation with her friend Louise Seaman, who had just founded the United States' first children's book publishing department at Macmillan, led Coatsworth to write her first children's book, The Cat and the Captain.