Bio

Un-Official Bio

“What is wrong with you?”
“Let me think about that. I’ll tell you the next time I see you.”
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

I refused to do this in third person. It freaks me out when I have to talk about myself in third person. Hullo! I’m writing my own flippin’ bio. I know my own name!

Anyway.

I’m a first generation Indian American that was raised in the countryside of northeast, Pennsylvania. I filled my spare time as a child with eighties music, Bollywood movies, and a lot of reading. I graduated from Muhlenberg College with a B.A. in English in 2006, and I currently attend law school in New York. My future goals include publishing teen fiction, finding a Bollywood movie partner that doesn’t make me sit through all the crying scenes, and reading as many good romances as I can.

But that’s just what I do. That’s not really who I am. Sometimes when you tell someone “I’m complicated,” it usually comes with a wink, a nudge and a free drink. It’s such a flirty comment, but at the same time, it applies to me in all seriousness. No one’s bought me a drink lately, and the only person who has winked at me in the last month is one of my professors, but he has a nervous tick.

Seriously. I’m complicated. I get the ‘I never thought you’d be that kinda person,’ comment all the time. But, complication isn’t such a bad thing. After all, do I really want to be pigeon-holed into one particular stereotype or personality? I think not.

That’s one of the reasons why I write so many different types of young adult fiction. The romance and the younger characters may always be a constant, but the issues change because young adults are complicated, too.

I grew up in the rustic countryside of bumblefart- I mean Northeast, Pennsylvania. Yes, there were more cows than humans when I was growing up but things have gotten better for good-ol’ NEPA (that’s Northeast PA for short). I have two younger siblings who drive me up the wall but they come in handy sometimes. That’s us on the left. Yes, my mother made us wear matching clothes. No, I don’t want to talk about it.

I went to Catholic schools/Jesuit prep schools. To this day I want to vomit when I see a plaid skirt. My sister once caught me admiring plaid shorts at Target and she slapped me across the face. I was immediately horrified with my actions. I was always the oddball growing up. I read all of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries before I graduated from the fifth grade. I had an obsession with old school WB shows. We’re talking: Angel, Buffy, Felicity, Popular, Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, etc. Old School being the key phrase. They don’t make drama like they used to.

Anywho. I went to this writer’s camp when I was sixteen and I made the dramatic change to writing poetry instead of fiction. I didn’t regret going to camp until I hit college when I realized how much I could have accomplished in fiction if I stuck with it. However, poetry has helped me to express emotional angst, hence my love for YA literature.

When I got to college (that’s me and some of the girls), I was set back another year in my writing endeavors because I did the whole Indian thing and was pre-med for a year. That totally didn’t work out. I hated bio. I mean…I REALLY HATED BIO. I switched over to English in my sophomore year and joined to local Romance Writers of America Chapter. I’ve been enamored with the PLRW chapter ladies ever since. (I love you guys!)

I started writing adult fiction again but decided to write a YA book just for the heck of it when I finished my first adult MS and didn’t want to face revising it (just the thought of revising it still makes me sick). I finished my first YA book by the time I graduated Muhlenberg College in 2006. It’s still sitting under my bed somewhere. My second YA is sitting next to it and so is my third. In 2008 I wrote my fourth YA book and voila! I got an agent! While all of that was happening, I worked for a law firm in New Jersey, then went to New Hampshire for my first year of law school. I hated NH so I transferred to NY where I live close to my grandmother, aunts and uncles.

And that’s me! I’m Indian so I do write about multi-cultural characters sometimes, but since I grew up in a predominately irish/polish/italian area, culture was never an issue for me. I know that sounds weird. I mean, come on! It should be, right? My parents were really very black and white kinda people. I was raised knowing exactly who I was and enjoying it, but never wearing it like a banner saying “look at me! I’m Indian!” I just did my thing.

So, I write about multi-cultural characters dealing with cultural identity issues, teens with problems and their constant struggle to face them, and about boring normalcy and aspiring individuality. I write what makes me happy, and I hope that my writing can make you happy, too.

That’s it, I guess. Thanks for reading more about me!