Sanam Sheriff is a queer poet, performer, and educator from Bangalore, India. Their debut poetry collection HUM ہم (winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry) will be published by the University of Nebraska Press in October, 2026. Currently, Sanam teaches Creative Writing at Haverford College.

Sanam’s writing has been published in Poetry Magazine, Poem-a-Day, The Rumpus, Poetry Daily, Indiana Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Adroit Journal, Outlook India, and elsewhere. Her work has received support and scholarships from Kundiman, Tin House, the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop, Poets & Writers, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, The Watering Hole, the Atlantic Centre for the Arts, and the Thomas J. Watson Foundation.

Sanam holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and is the Editor in Chief of the anthology On Liminality. From 2022-2025, they served as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College and organized the Reading Series. Sanam lives in Philadelphia, where they curate The Poets’ Studio at Twelve Gates Arts.