Sascha was born and educated in Pakistan and the U.S. She earned a B.A in Liberal Arts from Bennington College where she studied writing, photography, filmmaking and multi-media installation art. In 2003, she was awarded a fellowship to attend the MFA Creative Writing Programme at UMass Amherst. Her debut poetry collection The Grimoire of Grimalkin is available on Salt Publishing.

She spends her time in London and Pakistan, and is the co-producer of the successful La Langoustine Est Morte reading series along with Trinidadian poet Anthony Joseph. Her work appears in the Shearsman anthology on UK women’s poetries, “Infinite Difference.”

A 2008 article in the Guardian, “The New Beats,” named Akhtar one of the top twelve poets to watch. She also works as a literary reviewer and arts journalist. Her work is upcoming in various anthologies around the world, including Vallum in Canada and A Generation Defining Itself in the U.S.A.