About

I am a poet, essayist, novelist, and Icelandic-English translator.

My poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salamander, Field, Poetry East, Verse Daily, OnEarth, Meridian, WomanArts Quarterly, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and many other journals. Click here for samples and links to my poems.

My essays have won a Pushcart Prize (2025), been reprinted as editors’ favorites, and, best of all, sparked thoughtful responses. They have appeared in diverse venues including Ploughshares, The Hedgehog Review, Silk Road Review, highonadventure.com, and Iceland’s largest daily Morgunblaðið.

My research on how Iceland’s literary audience changed during modernization is summarized in the essay “Poetry, Hunger, and Electric Lights: Lessons from Iceland on Poetry and Its Audience,” originally published in The Cambridge Quarterly (September 2015). Click here for the abstract and a link to the full text and here for links to some of my other essays.

My Icelandic-English translations include Berglind María Tómasdóttir’s DUET (2021), The Gift to the People (ASI Art Museum, 2019), which won a commendation from the President of Iceland, Harpa Árnadóttir’s artist’s diary June (Crymogea, 2011), and Sigfús Bjartmarsson’s bestiary Raptorhood (Uppheimar, 2007).

I am the author of three novels, one YA, one adult, and one fantasy. All remain in the smithy, waiting for me to be seized with Delphic clarity and confidence.

Born in the Pacific Northwest and raised in Watertown, Massachusetts, I am a citizen of Iceland and the United States.

Please direct inquiries to:  sarah@sarahbrownsberger.com

In another mode, I have studied and taught dance, and still can’t help dancing in response to the cosmic spin.