Bio

Sara Michas-Martin is a poet and nonfiction writer who draws inspiration from science and the natural world. Specific teaching interests include ecopoetics, environmental humanities, science communication, and hybrid forms.

Her book, Gray Matter, winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize and nominated for the Colorado Book Award, explores the relationship between biology, the brain, and one’s conscious understanding of self. Current projects include a literary nonfiction manuscript that draws on medical, cultural, and natural history to consider how the logic of the maternal body corresponds, or is in tension with, ecological and social systems. Fire Weather, a poetry manuscript, takes on deep ecology and the ethics of care in our moment of environmental precarity.

Sara holds a BFA in visual art from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona. Her work has been supported by a Wallace Stegner fellowship, grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Arts, Marble House Project, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Community of Writers.

She received Notable Mentions in the Best American Essays and Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. Recent poems and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in the American Poetry Review, The Believer, The Glacier, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Longreads, New England Review, Orion, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, Terrain.org, and elsewhere. She lives in the mountains with her family east of Monterey Bay.

Academic Appointments

  • Lecturer, Creative Writing

Contact

Additional Info

Links

2025-26 Courses

All Publications

  • Mother Load: Microplastics & The New Wilderness Orion Magazine Michas-Martin, S. 2025; January 21, 2025: 5
  • Black Boxes New England Review Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 43 (1): 10-25

    View details for DOI 10.1353/ner.2022.0002

  • Gray Matter Michas-Martin, S. Fordham University Press. 2014
  • When We Talk About Personhood AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2025; 54 (6)

    View details for Web of Science ID 001631531800036

  • 5 Poems The Glacier Michas-Martin, S. 2024
  • "Influencers" Conduit Michas-Martin, S. 2024
  • Expecting Again The Courtland Review Michas-Martin, S. 2024
  • Wake Up or Get Out American Poetry Review Michas-Martin, S. 2023; 52 (5): Page34-34
  • A Meeting American Poetry Review Michas-Martin, S. 2023; 52 (5): p34-34
  • Transfigured in the Underground. JAMA Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 327 (14): 1405

    View details for DOI 10.1001/jama.2022.0863

    View details for PubMedID 35412562

  • Black Boxes NEW ENGLAND REVIEW-MIDDLEBURY SERIES Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 43 (1): 10-25

    View details for Web of Science ID 000778625700003

  • Possible Poetry Northwest Michas-Martin, S. 2022; Published on January 31, 2022
  • Visibly Pregnant KENYON REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 43 (4): 73

    View details for Web of Science ID 000672548700016

  • 2020 AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27

    View details for Web of Science ID 000644955400018

  • Blue Hours AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27

    View details for Web of Science ID 000644955400020

  • Bubble AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27

    View details for Web of Science ID 000644955400017

  • Nest AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27

    View details for Web of Science ID 000644955400021

  • He Says Cool Dress AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27

    View details for Web of Science ID 000644955400019

  • Is it Real CRAZYHORSE Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 99 (SPRING): 74
  • Thieves & Magicians CRAZYHORSE Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 99 (SPRING): 74
  • First October, Aspens AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18

    View details for Web of Science ID 000459365400020

  • With Toddler AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18

    View details for Web of Science ID 000459365400019

  • Middle Life AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18

    View details for Web of Science ID 000459365400018

  • Also Born KENYON REVIEW ONLINE Michas-Martin, S. 2018; MAY/JUNE
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3827-1653