Maryam A. Ghafoor

Maryam A. Ghafoor (she/they) is a queer, Muslim Pakistani-American poet from Illinois. Her poems appear in journals such as American Poetry Review, swamp pink, SOFTBLOW, Pinch, Redivider, and more. Her poetry is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review. She was longlisted for the 2025 Granum Prize, a finalist for the 2025 St. Lawrence Book Award, a finalist for the 2025 Wisconsin Poetry Series' Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prize Book Competition, and a semifinalist for the Kelsey Street’s QTBIPOC Book Prize. She currently works at Purdue University.

She holds a dual degree BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and an MFA in Creative Writing from Purdue University. Her Master’s thesis won the inaugural Distinguished Creative Work Award in 2017.

A woman with black, curly hair wearing blue glasses, a nose ring, and a blue and red patterned shirt, smiling at the camera in a room with bookshelves and artworks in the background.