Miriam Calleja

Miriam Calleja is the bilingual author of poetry collections Pomegranate Heart (EDE Books, 2015) and Inside Skin (a two-book series in collaboration with a lith photographer, EDE Books 2016). During the pandemic, her long poem ‘Remember’ was recorded and published as a memento of these times. It was presented during Versopolis: Festival of Hope online. The collaborative work Luftmeer (2021) was published in Maastricht, Holland.

Her most recent poetry chapbooks are Stranger Intimacy (Stamparija Reljic, 2020) and Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023).

She has been published in several journals and poetry anthologies worldwide, and 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 Wara Settembru (2018, Slovene Writers Association) and in the collection Anthology of Young Maltese Poets (Vakxikon, 2019).

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 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

Medical Writing

Several Health-related articles: Portfolio
COVID19 and the Virus that Shook the World (Oppian Press, 2020).

Poetry Collections

Pomegranate Heart (EDE Books, 2015)
Inside (as part of Inside Skin; EDE Books, 2016)
Stranger Intimacy (Stamparija Reljic, 2020)

Anthologies

Call the Sea a Poet: Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT, UK, August 2023)
Awarded Writers’ Collection (Alabama Writers’ Cooperative, 2022. Ed. T.K. Thorne)
Incontri Incrociate (Mosaique Press, 2022)
Cross-Currents Curente La Rascruce (Mosaique Press, 2022)
Leħen il-Malti (Għaqda tal-Malti; għadd nru 40, 2021)
Leħen il-Malti (Għaqda tal-Malti; għadd nru 39, 2020)
Chaos (Poetry on the Wall Press, 2019)
Leħen il-Malti (Għaqda tal-Malti; għadd nru 38, 2019)
Magic (The Gloucestershire Poetry Society, 2019)
The Black Rose (EDE Books, Editor David Pisani, 2019)
Paġna Mmarkata nru. 2 (editor Paul Grech, 2019)
Blue Nib (Edition no. 37, 2019)
For the Silent (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2019)
Tales from Prickly End (Hedgehog Poetry Press; issue 2, 2018)
Persona Non Grata (Fly on the Wall Poetry Press, 2018)
Leħen il-Malti (Għaqda tal-Malti; għadd nru 37, 2018)
Wara Settembru (11 poems translated from English to Slovene)
Poetic Potatoes (1 poem translated from Maltese to English and Frisian)
Please Hear What I’m Not Saying (the poem ‘I once loved something dark’)
Magic Oxygen Literature Prize 2016 (the poem ‘Burying the dark’)

Collaborations

Proximate Postcards I

Feral Women of the Deep South, Birmingham, August 2023 – with photographer Charity Rachelle

Online / In Print Magazines

Three poems on  platform review
Poetry selection here and here in Mediterranean Poetry
Disaster in Celebrating Change.
‘I hide’ was published in Poets Katze edition 1, with a translation in German by Karin Fellner.
‘A familiar map’ published in The Writer’s cafe Magazine (Issue 16 ‘Landscapes and Maps’, 2019)
‘Narċis’ is recorded for the Poetry Sound Library
‘Pomegranate Heart and other poems’ published in The Poethead
‘Lost in the Zoo’ was published in Sentinel Quarterly
‘You are my island’ (short version) published in The Fringe Magazine
Several poems from Inside Skin published on The Sunday Times of Malta
‘We become strangers’ published on The Bleeding Typewriter
‘8.04pm’ published by Candlestick Press as a Highly Commended poem in the Cloud poem competition