Staff

Anaphora is run by a community of passionate and dedicated folks, including an advisory council of writers, editors, literary agents, volunteers and interns. Admission to the application-based programs is highly competitive, and determined by an anonymous admission board, which rotates every other year. Anaphora relies on its fellows and our extended community at large to continue to grow and develop new programming.

If you’d like to be involved with Anaphora, please send us a note!

Mahtem Shiferraw, Founder & Executive Director

Mahtem Shiferraw is a writer and visual artist from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her work has been published in various literary magazines, including Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, Poets.org, The 2River View, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Numero Cinq, and more. She is the author of three books of poetry, Fuchsia (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), which won the Sillerman Prize for African Poets, Your Body Is War (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), and the chapbook Behind Walls & Glass. Her newest collection, Nomenclatures of Invisibility, was published by BOA Editions Ltd. in 2023, and was the winner of the Golden Poppy Award in poetry. Her work has been anthologized widely. Most recently, she curated the Black Voices series, and the New African Voices portfolio for World Literature Today, where she also served on the editorial board.

Mahtem works as a creative strategist with arts and literary organizations, with a particular focus on inclusive program design, strategic planning, and nonprofit leadership and management, focused on sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion practices. She holds an MFA from Vermont College, and teaches at Pacific University’s low-residency program. Find out more about her writing here.