Afternoon Reading with Maw Shein Win

Part of the Creative Writing Visiting Writers Series

You're invited to join Saint Mary's Creative Writing Department for a poetry reading and conversation with writer Maw Shein Win happening on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 from 2:30-3:30 pm in Hagerty Lounge on the Saint Mary’s College campus.

Win's latest collection, Percussing the Thinking Jar, unfolds in dreamlike lines and is accompanied by ink drawings, reflecting on the experiences of living in an aging body, and was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award.

Maw Shein Win is a Burmese American poet and served as the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, California. Her past collections have been longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award and the Golden Poppy Award. 

Percussing the Thinking Jar was born out of the pandemic. “At the start of lockdown,” Shein Win has said, “I didn’t go out much. I wrote copious notes in multiple journals. When I returned to what I had written, I realized I was asking questions in these notebooks, creating juxtapositions, and listing instructions. I began to compile what I had written into thought logs, and I set rules for them, for example, each should contain sixteen lines. I continued to work on them as well as other poems.” The Racket said in a rave review: “Win transforms the mundane into exquisite with gentle humor in the face of calamity.”

Visiting Writer events at Saint Mary's are free, open to the public, and ADA Accessible. Visitor parking is available on campus and light refreshments will be served. All attendees are eligible for a fee waiver for the MFA in Creative Writing application—please reach out to Collin Skeen, Assistant Director of Admissions, at cas38@stmarys-ca.edu for more information.