Sara McAulay grew up in northern Virginia, and spent summers barefoot in a bathing suit on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, collecting shells and sharks’ teeth, and digging fossils from nearby cliffs. For a while, she thought she might grow up to be a paleoichthyologist like the father of one of her childhood friends. Instead, she’s been a novelist, the founding editor of Tattoo Highway, an online journal of prose, poetry and art ; a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at California State University, East Bay, now enjoying retirement. At various times, she has been a professional horse trainer (jumpers and dressage), and an enthusiastic amateur dog trainer (agility and scent work). The recipient of NEA and New Jersey State Arts Council fellowships in fiction, she’s most recently turned to poetry and flash, earning Best of
the Net nominations. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she volunteers at a food bank, enjoys theater and music of all kinds, and finds “church” while hiking in the hills with her binoculars and her dog. Two formerly feral cats keep an eye on things at home.
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Ask River, her first chapbook of poetry, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March, 2026, is now available for pre-sale:​​
