Carla Rachel Sameth
Carla Rachel Sameth holds a MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte and a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also studied economics and literature at the Universidad Autónoma de México City (UNAM).
Sameth is the author of Secondary Inspections (Nymeria Publishing, 2024), a full-length poetry collection; the poetry chapbook, What Is Left (dancing girl press, 2021); and One Day on the Gold Line: A Memoir in Essays (Black Rose, 2019), which was a 2021 Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite in the category of memoir, and was reissued in 2022 by Golden Foothills Press.
Sameth is the recipient of several honors and scholarships, and has been selected for both a PEN in the Community Teaching Artist Residency and a Los Angeles Writing Project Fellowship. Sameth was selected as a Carrizozo Artist-in-Residency for 2022 and 2024. In 2016, she participated in the Summer Invitational Writing Institute at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA).
Sameth has taught creative writing at the Los Angeles Writing Project at California State University Los Angeles and at Southern New Hampshire University. She was selected to be a 2019–23 “Pride Poet” participating in the City of West Hollywood’s One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival. A member of the Pasadena Rose Poets, Sameth is also a mentor and has taught incarcerated youth through WriteGirl.
The cofounder of the Pasadena Writing Project, Sameth also helped to build a career and education outreach program for Latinas at Women at Work. She worked with the Seattle Indian Health Board, a leader in the promotion of health improvement for urban American Indians and Alaska Natives, where she started a program to combat family violence and sexual assault and created a model program for addressing adolescent healthcare, teen pregnancy, and teen parenting.
Sameth serves as Altadena poet laureate for community events through 2024, alongside Peter J. Harris, Altadena poet laureate editor in chief. In 2023, Sameth received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.