Mehnaz Sahibzada
Poet & Writer
Mehnaz Sahibzada (she/her/hers) was born in Pakistan and raised in Los Angeles. Her story, "Crashing," received an honorable mention in the fall 2022 Dillydoun Flash Fiction Prize Contest. She is a recipient of the 2022 Jack Hazard Fellowship in fiction writing for her first novel in progress, Jaani, a coming-of-age love story, teeming with ghosts and superstitions, that is set in post-partition Pakistan. She holds an M.A. in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara.
Her poetry collection, My Gothic Romance, was published in 2019 by Finishing Line Press. She is also the author of two chapbooks: Summer Forgets to Wear a Petticoat (2016, Finishing Line Press) and Tongue Tied: A Memoir in Poems (2012, Finishing Line Press).
Former PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow in Poetry (2009) and select reader in the Newer Poets Los Angeles XVI series (2011), her writing has appeared in several publications: Mystery Magazine, Uncanny, On the Run, Ellery Queen, Pedestal, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere.
In 2016, she served as a screener in the Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. In October 2019, she was featured as the poet of the month at Spirituality & Health. A high school English teacher, she lives in southern California.
Order her full-length poetry collection, My Gothic Romance (April 2019)
Access her Directory Profile at Poets & Writers