Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is co-founder of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and the author of three works of poetry: Letters from the Interior (Diode Editions); the 2018 Washington State Book Award winner Water & Salt (Red Hen Press); and the 2016 Two Sylvias Press Prize winner Arab in Newsland (Two Sylvias Press).[1] Khalaf Tuffaha is the recipient of a 2019 Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship and the inaugural Poet-In-Residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle, Washington.[2][3] Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Hayden's Ferry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, TriQuarterly, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series.[4] Khalaf Tuffaha holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.[5] Based in Washington, Khalaf Tuffaha has also served as spokesperson for the Seattle, WA chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.[6]