Poet, performer, teaching artist.

Maya Salameh is a Syrian American poet from San Diego, California. She is the author of HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE (University of Arkansas Press, 2022) and rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). She is the youngest-ever winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and a Finalist for the California Book Award. They have served as a National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets, and performed their poetry at the Obama White House, Carnegie Hall, and DeYoung Museum.

Maya has received fellowships from institutions including the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and the Breadloaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. Their work has appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, AGNI, Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and the LA Times, among others. She is fluent in French and Spanish and a heritage speaker of Arabic.
Header image

Honors

Finalist, California Book Award (California Commonwealth Club, 2022)

Inaugural Artist-In-Residence (The Markaz Resource Center, 2020)

Winner, Etel Adnan Poetry Prize (University of Arkansas Press, 2022)

Creative Fellow (Stanford Queerness, Spirituality, and Religion Office, 2022)

Finalist, Sublingua Prize for Poetry (Inverted Syntax Magazine, 2020)

Artist Fellow (Stanford Institute for Diversity in the Arts, 2020)

Finalist, Anzaldúa Poetry Prize (Newfound, 2019)

National Student Poet (President’s Committee of the Arts and Humanities, 2016)

Winner, Debut Series Chapbook Contest (Paper Nautilus, 2018)

Press