Saima Afreen

Saima Afreen is a poet, journalist, teaching artist, essayist, and Abstract Expressionist. Her works have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Indian Literature, HCE Review, Barely South Review, Bellingham Review, Roanoke Review, The Stillwater Review, The McNeese Review, The Nassau Review, The Oklahoma Review, Stag Hill Literary Journal, Notre Dame Review, Honest Ulsterman, and Existere, among others. She received the 2016 Writer Award from Nassau Community College. Afreen has presented her work at Sahitya Akademi Poets’ Meet, Paisley Book Festival, Craigmillar and Niddrie Community Festival, Betty June Silconas Poetry Festival, Helsinki Poetry Jam, Pulse Radio Glasgow, the University of Stirling, the University of Westminster, Waterstones bookstore Canterbury, Poetry with Prakriti Festival, and elsewhere. Afreen received a Villa Sarkia writer’s residency in Finland, where she edited Sin of Semantics (Copper Coin, 2019), her debut poetry collection. Afreen was the 2019 Charles Wallace fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Kent, UK. Afreen is pursuing a PhD in creative writing from Illinois State University and was awarded a Sutherland Fellowship to work in the editorial department of the university’s publications unit. Her poetry chapbook, Winter Biomythography, was published by Press 254 as part of the Sutherland Series.