Sasha West

Ornate door
Sasha West
School
School of Arts and Humanities
Department
Literature, Writing and Rhetoric
Office
Sorin Hall 214
Mailbox
18

Dr. Sasha West is a poet and professor of creative writing. Her teaching specializations include poetry, the hybrid genre, creativity studies, eco-poetics, and intersections between the visual and literary arts. She coordinates the Environmental Humanities minor.

Sasha West is the author of How to Abandon Ship, finalist for the 2025 Kingsley Tufts, and Failure and I Bury the Body, a National Poetry Series selection. Her awards include multiple Texas Institute of Letters awards, Inprint’s Verlaine Prize, a Writers League of Texas award, and a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including: American Poetry Review, Ecotone, The Slowdown, Georgia Review, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, and Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency. As eco-arts collaborative Hammonds + West, her multi-media shows with visual artist Hollis Hammonds have been exhibited at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Texas A&M, ArtPrize Michigan, Abilene’s Grace Museum, and elsewhere. She has received the St. Edward's University Distinguished Teaching Award and the Hudspeth Innovative Teaching Award. 

PhD in Creative Writing & Literature, University of Houston

MA in Poetry, Writing Seminars, Johns Hopkins University

BAs in General Literature and Psychology, University of California San Diego

Honors and Awards

Fellowship, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference

National Poetry Series, Winner

Texas Institute of Letters, First Book of Poetry Bob Bush Award

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Louis Untermeyer Scholarship

Houston Arts Alliance Establish Artist Grant

Rice University Parks Fellowship

Inprint's Verlaine Prize

Organizations, Boards and Memberships

2015-present, Advisory Board Member, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

2006-2015, Board Member, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

2007-2012, President of Board, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

2003-2006, Editor-in-Chief, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

2009, 2012, Poetry Curator, Menil Collection

Publications

Failure and I Bury the Body, Harper Perennial, 2013