Maya Bernstein-Schalet is a writer, researcher, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. Her chapbook, Nocturne, was published by catachresis editions in 2026. Her writing can be found in Colorado Review, Waxing & Waning, The Briar Cliff Review, and OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. She is the recipient of a Pushcart nomination, a Best of the Net nomination, The Briar Cliff Review’s 2023 Award for Nonfiction, the 2024 University of Arizona Creative Writing Program Bill Waller Award for Nonfiction, a 2025 AWP Intro Journals Project Award, and was a finalist for the 56th New Millennium Nonfiction Writing Awards. Her essay on Walter Benjamin and Alzheimer's was selected as a notable essay in the Best American Essays of 2024. Maya's audio stories about food justice appeared on Heritage Radio Network's weekly show "Meat and Three."Maya holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from Wesleyan University. At U of A, she teaches first-year composition and creative nonfiction writing. Her pedagogy is rooted in investigative research, archival thinking, and site-based learning, including unique collaborative work with the Center for Creative Photography, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, U of A Special Collections, and the U of A Museum of Art. In 2025, she facilitated workshops on investigative research methods for the U of A Libraries and on grant writing and funding for MFA students. In all of her work, she combines her background in cultural anthropology and investigative journalism with her interests in science, the environment, memory, history, and social movements.Maya contributed research to The Marshall Project’s Next to Die investigation on capital punishment and Belly of the Beast Cuba’s investigations on U.S. interventions in Cuba. In 2019, Maya was awarded a Wesleyan Center for the Humanities fellowship for her research on the impacts of the U.S. military base in Guantánamo bay on the nearest Cuban town of Caimanera. Her research has been supported by the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami, the Cuban History Institute, the National Archives at College Park, the Pyeatte Family Foundation, the University of Arizona Graduate and Professional Student Council, the University of Arizona Graduate Student Research Fund, a Monique Wittig Writer’s Scholarship, an Oak Spring Garden Foundation fellowship, the University of Oregon Special Collections, and a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Research Travel Grant.She specializes in research projects that involve combing through crumbling newspapers for a forgotten address, scraping legal databases for times of death, watching hundreds of YouTube videos for offhand comments, and follow-the-money trails through domestic and international financial files in both English and Spanish. She has found key donor information in a 474th footnote and evidence of international espionage on Instagram. Maya is particularly well-versed in the American eugenics movement, the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Nagasaki, Cuban history, Soviet history, U.S. military bases around the world, and twentieth-century revolutionary movements, although she can quickly immerse herself in any project.Maya is available for freelance grant writing, research, and editing. She offers pro bono grant writing to community organizations, mutual aid groups, and grassroots organizers. To inquire, please send an email with details about your project.When she is not writing, Maya is admiring saguaros, reading library books, or eating home-cooked food with friends. Most likely, she is at home with her partner Miro, cat Sid, dog Molly, and chickens Pepper, Pony, Patsy, Paloma, Huma, and Claudia.You can email her at [email protected] or find her on Instagram and X @maya__freda.