Sarah Matsui
Artist Statement
Writing is often how I'm able to pay attention, and how I come to better understand myself and the world around me. My work explores interpersonal and collective care; the mutual relationship between a situation and its story; agency and powerlessness; immigrantness; and Asian Americanness.
Bio
Sarah Matsui is a 2025–2026 Steinbeck Fellow and the winner of the Sewanee Review Nonfiction Contest, the Fractured Lit Contest, and the Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless Nason Award. Her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Offing, The Sewanee Review, Pleiades, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Southern Review, Jacobin Magazine, and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. She is the recipient of a 2024–2025 Friends of the San Francisco Public Library Residency, a 2025 San Francisco Foundation / Nomadic Literary Award in Poetry, a 2025 Periplus Fellowship, the 2025 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Christina Chiu AAPI Writers Fellowship, and a 2025 Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. She is currently at work on her debut essay collection, Care Directive.