Samantha is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Missouri Review, Appalachian Review, On the Seawall, Hobart, Literary Accents, and Rust+Moth, among others. Her second manuscript was a finalist in the 2021 National Poetry Series. She is the recipient of a Teach! Write! Play! Fellowship from the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing; additionally, she was a finalist in the 2020 Tupelo Press Four Quartets: Poetry in the Pandemic Open Call, and her manuscript was deemed a Manuscript of Extraordinary Merit in the 2019 Tupelo Press Open Reading Period. Her poem "Spring Sign" won the 2021 Sandy River Review Comfort Contest, and her poem "I am a Parking Chair" was the winner of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival First Poem Contest, and took second place in the 2021 Cheltenham Poetry Festival Single Poem Contest. She is the recipient of the 2018 Dick Shea Memorial Award for Poetry, as judged by Shelley Girdner.
Samantha hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She completed her MFA at the University of New Hampshire in 2018, where she was a writing instructor and taught composition and poetry courses. She also coordinated the MFA reading series Read Free or Die in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and read for the program's literary journal, Barnstorm. She was a recipient of the 2018 Summer Teaching Assistant Fellowship, which supported her research on the representation of the Pittsburgh dialect in poetry. She has taught writing courses at UNH, Great Bay Community College, and Arts + Literature Laboratory, and she previously served as the Associate Director of the Connors Writing Center at UNH. She has served on the Steering Committee of the Northeast Writing Centers Association and on the UNH Writing Committee, and she currently serves on the board of the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program.
A former member of the Appalachian Mountain Club hut croo, Samantha enjoys hiking and trail running in the White Mountains. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with her corgi dog, Moose.
