Sarah Matsui is an interdisciplinary writer. Her first book, Learning From Counternarratives in Teach For America, was published in 2015 by Peter Lang and featured in NPR Code Switch, Jacobin Magazine, and Rethinking Schools Magazine’s “Our Picks for Books for Social Justice Teaching: Policy.” Her latest writing was selected as the winner of the 2021 The Sewanee Review Nonfiction Contest judged by Stephanie Danler and a winner of the 2022 Fractured Lit Contest judged by Deesha Philyaw; her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, The Seventh Wave, The Southern Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Pleiades.

Matsui is the recipient of the 2024-2025 Friends of the San Francisco Public Library Brown Handler Residency, the 2023 Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless Nason Contributor Award in Nonfiction, a 2023 Zellerbach Award, a 2021-2022 San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Grant, a 2021 Tin House Scholarship, a 2021 Theatre Bay Area Grant, as well as support from Lighthouse, Gotham Writers, Longleaf Writers, The Ruby, and Kearny Street Workshop.

She lives in San Francisco and is currently working on her debut essay collection.