Sara Sams

Sara Sams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Arizona, where she contributes to the Creative Writing program. Her work bridges literary art and scientific inquiry, focusing on poetry, translation, and interdisciplinary expression.

Her research interests include:

• Poetry & Poetics
• Science & Literature, particularly the influence of particle physics on contemporary poetry
• Poetry in Translation from Spanish
• Language acquisition and teaching writing to second-language learners
• Medical science in creative writing, including themes of childbirth and infant surgery
• Nuclear culture and its literary representations

Sams's creative work explores the intersections of personal, historical, and scientific narratives. Her poetry collection Atom City critically examines the legacy of the Manhattan Project and American exceptionalism. She is currently working on a novel involving nuclear-reactor-powered ghosts and the opioid crisis in rural Tennessee, as well as new poems on medical frontlines and family inheritance.

She has taught at the National University of Singapore and for the Ministry of Education in Logroño, Spain, which deepened her engagement with multilingual education and translation. Her translations of Spanish poets such as David Leo García and Adriana Bañares have been published, and she collaborated on a multilingual art project about Jorge Luis Borges and Xul Solar for the Phoenix Art Museum.

Sams is actively involved in literary communities, having served on the editorial staff of Parnassus: Poetry in Review and Hayden’s Ferry Review, and as a faculty mentor for The Superstition Review. Her poems and translations have appeared in Blackbird, The Volta, Matter Monthly, The Drunken Boat, and Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine.

Her educational background includes a B.A. in English and Spanish from Davidson College and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Arizona State University. She grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which deeply influences her literary themes. She maintains a professional website at saraesams.com.