Afternoon Reading with Mia Ayumi Malhotra

Part of the Creative Writing Visiting Writers Series

You're invited to join Saint Mary's Creative Writing Department for a poetry reading and on-stage conversation with writer Mia Ayumi Malhotra happening on Wednesday, March 18th, 2026 from 2:30-3:30 pm in the Lafayette Room of the Soda Center on the Saint Mary’s College campus.

Malhotra's latest collection, Mothersalt, draws from the sticky, milk-drenched reality of childbirth and pregnancy. The Washington Post praised the book for “its wit, heard, and bracing candor.” Malhotra is also the author of Isako Isako, a poetry collection that was the winner of the Alice James Award, the Nautilus Gold Award for Poetry, and the Maine Literary Award. 

In an interview in Adroit Journal, Malhotra said that after becoming a mother, it was a struggle to locate herself in language, but soon she found a poetic interest in “time as assemblage, as something material that accumulates like dust or castoff socks in a family home.” Her poems also center on “the openness of time beyond time” and veer toward the eternal.

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.