Dr. Sarah A. Chavez

Sarah A. Chavez is a queer Chicana and mestiza writer, educator, and literary community advocate raised in California’s Central Valley. Writing under she/ella/they pronouns, Chavez creates poetry and scholarship that examine how ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and grief shape identity and the ways people perform it.

Her published poetry collections include Hands That Break & Scar, like everything else we loved, All Day, Talking, and Halfbreed Helene Navigates the Whole. Her work has appeared in literary publications including Diode, Thimble Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cider Press Review, and The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review. Chavez holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Ethnic Studies, focused on Latinx and Chicanx culture and art.

She teaches Creative Writing and Latinx Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma and coordinates poetry for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net Anthology. Her projects have earned nominations, an arts initiative award, residencies, and a university research grant, reflecting her contributions to contemporary literature and literary communities