Sasha West

Sasha West is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward's University.14 She was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico.1 West received the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Hudspeth Innovative Teaching Award from St. Edward's University.1 She lives in Austin, TX, with her husband and kid.1

West holds an MA from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.2 Her teaching specializations include poetry, the hybrid genre, and creativity studies.4

Her first book, Failure and I Bury the Body, won the National Poetry Series and the Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award.1 It was also selected as one of ten debut books by Victoria Chang for Poets & Writers.1 Her second book, How to Abandon Ship, was published by Four Way Books in March 2024.1 This book explores current climate change issues in connection with humanity.3

West collaborates on multi-media, eco-arts exhibitions with visual artist Hollis Hammonds as the collaborative Hammonds + West.1 Their collaborations have been featured at Texas A&M University’s Wright Gallery, the Austin Public Library Central Gallery space, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, the College of the Mainland, ArtPrize2023 in Michigan, and the Columbus College of Art and Design.1 Upcoming shows include Houston’s Art League and The Grace Museum in Abilene, TX.1

Her work has been collected in the anthologies The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency, Still Life with Poem: 100 Natures Mortes in Verse, Penned: Zoo Poems, and others.1 Individual poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, Ecotone, The Georgia Review, Agni, American Poet, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere.1

Her awards include a Fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a Houston Arts Alliance grant, Pushcart nominations, and Inprint’s Verlaine Prize.1