Elsa Martinez Coscolluela

Who is Elsa Martinez Coscolluela?

Elsa Martinez De Coscolluela is an award-winning Filipina poet, short-story writer, and playwright from Bacolod City. She is married to Jose Orlando H. Coscolluela and has three sons, Jose Orlando Jr, John Paul Rupert, and Jacques Oscar Celerino. She finished her AB and MA for Creative Writing at the Silliman University, a school noted for training writers in the Philippines, and also a doctorate in Language and Literature from the De La Salle University.

Her career as a poet lasted between 1965 and 1973 and these poems are published in a book entitled "Katipunera and Other Poems" published in 1998. In 1973 she focused her writing efforts to writing plays and also to pursue an academic career. Her best known play that earned her great acclaim as a playwright is "In My Father's House" which staged production both in the University of the Philippines and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the year 1988. This play was also the official Philippine entry to the Association of South East Asian Nations Drama Festival held in Singapore in 1989. In My Father's House was also staged in New York, San Francisco, Kyoto, and the Philippines.

As an academician she held the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City and also manages annual Negros Summer Workshops for artists and writers with Peque Gallaga since 1991.