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)
Hi! About me: I’m a first generation Indian American raised in the countryside of northeast, Pennsylvania. As a child, I filled my spare time with eighties music, Bollywood movies, and a lot of reading. I graduated from Muhlenberg College with a B.A. in English in 2006, and Hofstra School of Law in 2010. I am pursuing an MFA from Wilkes University in Creative Writing while I’m toiling away at a day job in New York.
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. I’ve also been fortunate enough to publish my poetry in an anthology.
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 fiction again, but decided to write a YA instead of an adult romance as an exercise and I was hooked! I finished my first YA book by the time I entered law school in 2007. It’s still sitting under my bed somewhere. My second YA is sitting next to it. In 2008 I wrote my third YA book and voila! I got an agent! I got side tracked again with law school graduation and bar exams (passed on the first try for both PA and NJ baby! woohoo!). In the process, I wrote and sold two adult romance novels and published my poetry anthology. After graduating Hofstra Law, I started a day job in NYC. The RWA National Conference was in town that year so I stopped by to visit friends and ran into Antonella Iannarino from David Black Literary and within 2 weeks, I was signed! So I’m now working my fabulous new agent on my fourth YA.
And that’s me! I’m Indian so I do write about multi-cultural characters sometimes, but mostly, I write what makes me happy. I hope that my writing can make you happy, too.
Thanks for reading more about me!