Sami Helgeson was raised in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, an area untouched by the glaciers of the last ice age. She now lives in Philadelphia.

Sami’s work gently holds the nuances of home, trauma, youth, and queerness to examine the places that raise us, how we leave and return to them to understand who we are. Helgeson calls upon her background in earth science and personal experiences of trespasses on the body to examine the parallels of a person and a landscape. What does it mean to be (un)touched?

Sami is the recipient of the 2025 Penn Review Poetry Prize, the 2023 Patty Friedmann Writing Contest winner, and was a 2024 Finalist for the Lit Fest Fellowship for Emerging Writers. Their work has received support from the Lighthouse and Kenyon Review Writers Workshops.

A proud first-generation college student, Helgeson holds a B.A. from the University of Denver in Environmental Science and International Studies, with a specialization in International Organizations, Security, and Human Rights and minors in Leadership Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies.