New works for adults

If you follow me on social media, you know I've had a few adult projects in the works! I've been writing a science fiction story for a new interactive story website called StoryLoom. The story is called Bridges Must Fall and is a light science fiction multiverse story inspired by my love of Everything, Everywhere All at Once and Peripheral. Check it out and let me know what you think! I'm aiming for about fifteen chapters and have written seven so far. New chapters are added about every 2-3 weeks as I write them! This has been a really fun freelance project, and I hope you enjoy it.

I've also had my first poem published in Tower Magazine! The poem is entitled "My Mother, the Exoskeleton", and it is a strange speculative poem about motherhood and trying to escape your ancestral patterns.

"Where's the author?" Reflections on my first school visit as a published author

I had my first author visit today and it was SOO much fun! Well, actually it was my 2nd, if you include the talk I did for my daughter's 3rd grade classroom before I was published. When I spoke to my daughter's class a number of years ago, I made a point to discuss how, growing up, I had never read even one picture book about an Indian American child--not a single one. I gestured to their classroom library. Then, I showed them a picture of me in Kindergarten and stated clearly that that was a picture of me, a child who was a future author (and didn't know it!).

When speaking today, I was going to omit that discussion--the kids were younger, only in preschool and kindergarten--and I wasn't sure that they were going to be able to last through a long discussion about me before we even got to my book. Also, the teachers said I wasn't the first author to come visit the school, another author had previously visited, whose name I recognized, an author with a lot more school visits under his belt, which left me feeling a bit nervous since this was my first author visit with so many kids!

But then, as soon as the first class filed in to sit down, the very first thing a student said to me was, "Where's the author?"

"I'm the author!" I explained.

"You?" the child asked, surprised and even a little incredulous.

That's when I knew I couldn't omit that part. The previous author they had met was a white man, and so it was incumbent upon me to be kind but clear with them, that yes, an author can have brown skin and black hair and look like me or like anyone else.

We're still not at a place where kids know that authors CAN in fact look like me. But I hope we can get there, and until then, I will be sharing my pictures and saying this frankly to students.

Usha and the Big Digger is a 2023 Mathical Honor Winner!

I'm thrilled to announce that USHA AND THE BIG DIGGER has won a Mathical Book Prize Honor Award! What an honor! Congratulations also goes to Sandhya Prabhat, USHA's talented illustrator. I'd like to thank my editor Alyssa Pusey, designer Jon Simeon, math expert Marlene Kliman, and my agent Kari Sutherland. Thank you of course to USHA's many readers and fans!

Mathical Book Prize Winning Titles