Authors
Jyotsna Sreenivasan
Jyotsna Sreenivasan is the author of a new short story collection, These Americans. She is also the author of the novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky. She was selected as a Fiction Fellow for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies. She was a finalist for the 2014 PEN Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, and received an Artist Fellowship Grant from the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts. She was born and raised in Ohio. Her parents are immigrants from India.
Sabreet Kang Rajeev
Sabreet Kang Rajeev is a first-generation Indian American of Sikh descent. Her parents immigrated to America in the early 1980s. She was born in Queens, New York and later relocated to Baltimore, Maryland in 1999. Throughout her life, Sabreet experienced the beauty and struggle of being part of a blue-collar immigrant family that was fortunate enough to provide her with the foundation of her success today. Sabreet is driven to raise awareness and empathy for a minority group of Indian Americans who do not historically come from educational or economic privilege.Sabreet is a full-time Social Science Researcher. Generation Zero is her first book.
Poonum Desai
Author. Educator. Public speaker. I wrote my first book Sincerely, Life, which debuted in Summer 2020. I am passionate about politics, social rights, fitness, to name a few. I used writing as a therapy outlet for a while, and finally writing became my sanctuary to help keep my mental health strong. I hope to connect with you!
Mrinal Gokhale
Mrinal Gokhale is an Indian-American author born and raised in the Midwest. As a former journalist, she reported on mental health stigma in Black and brown communities over the years, but felt conversations were lacking about Asian communities. Additionally, Mrinal has benefitted from both Eastern and Western methodologies of wellness, and she knew no other South Asians in therapy years back. After taking a memoir writing class in quarantine, Mrinal learned about self-publishing and wrote her book in four months."Saaya Unveiled: South Asian Mental Health Spotlighted" shares 11 true stories of second-generation South Asians who navigate mental health. Interviewees are from different countries, as well as different socioeconomic, racial and religious backgrounds, all intersectional to their South Asian identities. Her goal is to increase cultural competence in non South Asian healthcare providers, to bridge the gap of education and acceptance around mental health between immigrant generations, and lastly, to illustrate mental health beyond what the mass media portrays: as a spectrum that every human being is on.
Sravani Hotha
I write contemporary South Asian fiction for children and adults as well as science fiction and fantasy based on Hindu mythology. My fiction has been published in Duende Literary, Dragon Poet Review, and Fuss Class News. I also have an upcoming creative non fiction publication in Brown Girl Magazine’s first print anthology. Currently, I am querying my children’s books for publication. I am located in Pittsburgh, PA.
Jyoti Rajan Gopal
I'm a children's book author, teacher and mom. Growing up, I lived in Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, India and China. Twenty-seven years ago, I moved to New York and I now live in Yonkers in a quirky old Victorian. I write stories that speak to my heart, that reflect my multiple identities, that I wish my daughters had growing up, that I wish my students had now. My debut picture book, AMERICAN DESI, comes out June 2022.
Veena Ramaswamy
I'm an ambitious go-getter who wears many hats. I'm an award-winning tech leader with an expertise in Marketing Analytics by profession. I'm also a speaker, author, life coach, aspiring entrepreneur, award-winning lifestyle blogger/photographer, and more! I've had a passion for writing ever since childhood. Just recently published my debut book Beyoutifully Empower - I shared my self-discovery story and would like to empower women and men to become their authentic best selves by helping them embrace their inner power and to manifest their dreams! I would like to represent successful South Asian women in tech, arts, and business.
Jenny Bhatt
Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, and book critic. She is the founder of Desi Books and teaches creative writing at Writing Workshops Dallas. Her debut story collection, Each of Us Killers: Stories (7.13 Books; Sep 2020) won a 2020 Foreword INDIES award in the Short Stories category and was a finalist in the Multicultural Adult Fiction category. Her literary translation, Ratno Dholi: Dhumketu’s Best Short Stories (HarperCollins India; Oct 2020) has been shortlisted for the 2021 PFC-VoW Book Awards for English Translation from Regional Languages. Her writing has appeared in various venues including The Atlantic, NPR, BBC Culture,
T. Jahan
t. jahan is a writer working on a novel set in 1970s Bangladesh and a children’s book. They write narratives and memoirs to bring awareness to Asian immigration and diasporic experiences. Their work has been published in The Margins, Guernica, PEN America’s DREAMing Out Loud anthologies, NYWC’s The Journal, and is forthcoming in the Newtown Literary, Gagosian Quarterly, Sampad Arts' My City My Home project, and Somewhere We Are Human - an anthology of migrant writing. Perhaps equally important and relevant, they are teaching themself piano and take aphorisms on satchels of tea very seriously.
**Illustrator: Alex Charner, alexcharner.com**
Amitha Knight
Amitha Jagannath Knight is the author of Usha and the Big Digger. A graduate of MIT and Tufts University School of Medicine, she is a former social media manager for We Need Diverse Books. In 2012, she won the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award.
Aparna Verma
Aparna Verma was born in India and immigrated to the United States when she was two-years-old. She graduated from Stanford University with Honors in the Arts and a B.A. in English. The Boy with Fire is her first novel.
When she is not writing, Aparna likes to ride horses, dance to Bollywood music, and find old cafes to read myths about forgotten worlds. You can connect with Aparna on Twitter and Instagram at @spirited_gal.
Shachi Kaushik
Shachi Kaushik is a Writer and a Storyteller. She is a part of the Children's Media Indsurty and creates content that is entertaining, enlightening and educational. Her debut picture book, Diwali in My New Home, comes out Fall 2022.
Chitra Soundar
Chitra Soundar is an internationally published, award-winning author of over 60 books for children. She is also an oral storyteller and writer of books, TV, plays, and short stories for children and adults. Chitra is based in London, UK.