About
About Sabina
Sabina grew up hearing stories around kitchen tables and at family gatherings, while others lived in silence, carried quietly across generations. Her writing begins with listening: to family histories, to silences, and to the fragments of memory that shape who we become.
Her writing explores memory, family, migration, inheritance, and belonging, often through the lens of Pakistani Pashtun Muslim American life and the quiet tensions between generations.
Sabina holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where she graduated with Distinguished Honors. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, SWWIM, Anomaly, FERAL, and other literary journals and anthologies. She is a member of The Authors Guild and a 2026 One Story Writing Circle participant.
Her poetry manuscript, What My Mouth Inherited, recognized under its former title, a new vocabulary, was twice a semifinalist (2023 and 2024) for the University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes and a 2024 semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Her work has also been recognized by Palette Poetry, SmokeLong, and CRAFT.
She has taught creative writing through organizations including The Writers Grotto, San Diego Writers Ink, and Litquake’s Elder Project, where she works with older adults exploring memory, story, and lived experience through writing. She directs The Writers Grotto’s Rooted & Written program for BIPOC writers.
She is currently at work on a novel, a collection of short stories, and her debut poetry collection.
For Sabina, writing begins the way it did at her family’s kitchen table: by paying as much attention to what goes unsaid as to what is spoken aloud. She returns not to resolve these histories, but to stay with them long enough to find the shape of a story, and perhaps to give language to what might otherwise remain unspoken.
Focus: Poetry · Flash fiction · Creative nonfiction · Writing workshops · Memory & migration · Retreats
Recognition
Awards, fellowships & education
Prizes & recognition
- CRAFT Dialogue Contest — Honorable Mention 2025
- Palette Poetry Love & Eros Prize — Longlist (top 2%) 2025
- SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction — Shortlist, “Non-Existent” 2025
- Philip Levine Prize for Poetry — Semifinalist 2024
- University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes — Semifinalist (twice), for What My Mouth Inherited (under its former title, a new vocabulary) 2023 & 2024
- Wilmer Award — Winner 2016
Fellowships
- Vital Arts Bay Area Artist Census (BAAC) Fellowship — San Mateo County Fellow 2025–2027
- Rooted & Written Fellowship — Fellow; now program director 2020
- VONA Fellowship 2020
- Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing — Fully-Funded Fellowship 2019
- Brainard Fellowship 2016
Education
- MFA in Creative Writing, San Francisco State University — Distinguished Honors 2020
Roots & roles
Community
Along the way, I’ve been fortunate to learn from generous teachers, students, collaborators, and friends who continue to shape my writing life.
Leading & organizing
Rooted & Written
Director · Fellow, 2020
The Writers Grotto’s program for BIPOC writers. A Rooted & Written fellow in 2020, Sabina now directs the program, which offers workshops, classes, write-ins, keynotes, seminars, and readings. Recent Rooted & Written events include the Berkeley Poetry Festival (March 2026), Book Society in Berkeley (August 2026), and Maker, Mentor, Muse (September 2026).
Vital Arts · Bay Area Artist Census
Fellow, San Mateo County
An 18-month leadership fellowship (2025–2027) leading regional data collection and advocacy for Bay Area artists. Organizer of Artists Gather, the census’s San Mateo County community launch on October 25, 2026.
Words & Stories Reading Series
Curator, 2024
Curated the Writers Grotto × Salesforce Park reading series, with featured readers Pia Chatterjee, Leigh Lucas, Terry Tierney, Samz R. Nesh, Christopher Cook, and Giovanna Lomanto.
Teaching
The Writers Grotto
Instructor & member
Teaches multi-week generative classes in poetry and prose, plus virtual write-ins, with San Francisco’s independent writing community.
Litquake Elder Project
Instructor
Teaches select sessions of weekly online writing workshops for older adults, as part of a co-teaching team.
San Diego Writers, Ink
Instructor
Teaches workshops through Write Your Story Now.
San Francisco State University
Alum & former lecturer
Earned her MFA in Creative Writing at SFSU, where she also trained in the pedagogy and curriculum of teaching creative writing, including coursework in teaching online, in-person, and hybrid formats. She has taught in the MFA program as well as through SFSU’s hybrid course offerings.
Fellowships, memberships & festivals
VONA/Voices
Alum
Multi-genre workshop for writers of color. VONA Fellow, 2020.
Authors Guild
Member
Professional organization for writers.
Kearny Street Workshop / APAture
Selected story winner
Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts festival. Featured reader at APAture 2025, “(UN)Becoming.”
Lit Crawl San Francisco
Featured reader
Part of Litquake. Read in “Kindred: All the Ways Poetry Says Sisterhood” (2025) and “Body Language” (2026).
SALA Festival
Selected poet, 2026
The South Asian Literature & Arts Festival. Read as a selected poet at SALA Festival 2026, Menlo College.
For event organizers
Bio & headshot
Short bio (94 words). Feel free to use it in programs and announcements.
Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pakistani Pashtun Muslim American poet, fiction writer, and teacher. Her work has appeared in SWWIM, Anomaly, and FERAL and is forthcoming in AGNI. Her poetry manuscript, What My Mouth Inherited, was twice a semifinalist (2023 and 2024) for the University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes and a 2024 semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. She holds an MFA from San Francisco State University, directs The Writers Grotto’s Rooted & Written program for BIPOC writers, and teaches through The Writers Grotto, San Diego Writers, Ink, and Litquake’s Elder Project.
