My Pushcart-Prize Nominated Poem
As a working writer, I often reap seeds that were sown months and maybe years ago. This is simultaneously a frustrating and reassuring experience. It is frustrating because it is…
Miriam Calleja is an award-winning Pushcart-prize nominee poet, writer, editor, workshop leader, and translator. Her poetry collections and chapbooks are Pomegranate Heart (EDE Books, 2015), Inside Skin (a two-book series in collaboration with a lith photographer, EDE Books 2016), Remember (Stamparija Reljic, 2020), Luftmeer (self-published in collaboration, Maastrich Holland, 2021), Stranger Intimacy (Stamparija Reljic, 2020), and Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023).
She is a poetry editor and 2024 judge of Brick Road Press.
Calleja is a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry published in 2024, for her poem Instruction Manual: Sheets of Desire (International Human Rights Arts Movement, The Feminine Voice of Malta, 2024).
She has been published in Humana Obscura, plume, Dandelion Scribes, Modern Poetry in Translation, LEON literary press, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into Italian, Arabic, Slovene, Greek, Romanian, French, German, Norwegian, and Frisian, among others. Her work has been published in translation in the collection Correnti Incrociate 2 (Mosaique Press, 2022), Il-Ħsad Tal-Peprin (Horizons, 2024), Anthology of Young Maltese Poets (Vakxikon, 2019), Wara Settembru (2018, Slovene Writers Association), and elsewhere .
She is from Malta but currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she regularly facilitates creative writing workshops. She has read at events in Malta, Berlin, UK, Italy, Germany, San Francisco, Alabama, and New York.
In 2022, two of her poems placed 1st in competitions in Alabama State – Alabama State Poetry Society and Alabama Writers Cooperative.
In 2024 she was a featured guest during the Magic City Poetry Festival in Birmingham, Alabama. In 2021 she was a featured poet at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival after featuring in the online version in 2020. In 2021 she represented Malta in the hybrid festival Transpoesie. In 2020, she was also a guest at the Shamrock Festival for women poets (Munich) and online at Versopolis Festival of Hope – here and here.
Miriam is a co-founder and the Vice President of the voluntary organisation PEN Malta, a centre for freedom of expression and promotion of literature.
In 2018 her poem was longlisted for the Troubadour International Prize.
In 2018 she received an honourable mention for the national poetry competition Mons. Amante Buontempo.
In 2017, the Network of Young Women Leaders recognised her as a leading female artist in Malta.
In 2015 she was shortlisted for a literary excellence award for her poem ‘Burying the Dark’, which has been published in an anthology by Magic Oxygen in the UK.
She hosts regular creative writing workshops at the O’Neal Library in Mountain Brook, Birmingham, AL.
Miriam is also a medical writer who wrote the book COVID19 and the Virus that Shook the World (Oppian Press, 2020).
Miriam believes that poetry and prose are tools for storytelling that encourage unity. She has great faith in collaboration as a key to communication.
Download Miriam’s CV: Miriam-Calleja-Shaw-Resumé-Jan2023
