Lena Tuffaha

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an American poet of Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian heritage. Her debut book of poems, WATER & SALT, won the 2018 Washington State Book Award, and her chapbook, ARAB IN NEWSLAND, won the 2016 Twos Sylvias Press Prize. Her essays & book reviews have been published in Kenyon Review Online, The Rumpus, and Poetry Northwest. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, Italian, Hebrew, and Spanish and have been published in American and international journals including Blackbird, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mizna, New England Review, TriQuarterly, and the Academy of American Poets‘ Poem-A-Day feature. Her chapbook, LETTERS FROM THE INTERIOR, is forthcoming in Fall 2019 from Diode Press. Tuffaha earned a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. She is a Hedgebrook alum and has served as Inaugural Poet-In-Residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle. She lives in Redmond, Washington with her family.