11 Questions With Creatives

Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the novel, Meet Us by the Roaring Sea (FSG, 2022), and the linked story collection, Half Gods, (FSG, 2018), which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, was awarded the Bard Fiction Prize and the Story Prize Spotlight Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, American Short Fiction, BOMB, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an assistant professor in the Rutgers University-Newark MFA program. Get to know her with 11 Questions!  

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Amal Ghandour is a Lebanese-Jordanian author and blogger (Thinking Fits), with a career that spans more than three decades in the fields of research, communication, and community development. Her book, About This Man Called Ali (2009), was named the first biography of a modern Arab artist by the renowned Historian Philip Mansel. Get to know her with 11 Questions!  

Ghandour describes her new book, This Arab Life, A Generation’s Journey Into Silence, “as a memoir that is not of an individual but of the generation that came of political age in the 1980s in the Levant.” This Arab Life, she adds, “is an intimate rendition of the times that shaped us; the way we internalized our parents’ myriad dejections and disappointments; the pragmatism and silence that defined us; and the dispiriting inheritance we inexorably bequeathed our own children.”⁠  

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Anita Kharbanda is an Indian-American engineer by trade, and a storyteller by heart. She lives in North Texas with her loving husband and two sons. An. avid lifelong reader of all kinds of fiction, she revels in seeing her children do the same. The healing power of letters filled with family history inspired Anita to start writing. She now writes the kinds of stories she’s devoured through the years, with one difference. She promised herself she’d write stories about the characters she dreamed of seeing in books growing up, and lift the voices of those who go unheard.  

When she is not working, writing or reading, she can be found playing board games with her family, watching her sons’ sports games, or baking. She loves to travel with her fam icy, but admits she sleeps coziest at home in her own bed. A warm cup of chai, reading a good book, and cuddles with her children are her zen.  

Yali Books published her debut YA novel, Lioness of Punjab, on September 17, 2022. The story is told from the perspective of Mai Bhago, the first female, Sikh warrior. 

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Sabina Khan writes about Muslim teens who straddle cultures. She was born in Germany, spent her teens in Bangladesh and lived in Macao, Illinois and Texas before settling in British Columba with her husband and two daughters. Get to know her with 11 questions!  

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Jesmeen Kaur Deo grew up in northern British Columbia, where she spent most of her childhood daydreaming. She loves books that can make her laugh and tug at her heartstrings in the same paragraph. When not wrapped up in stories, she can be found biking, playing the harmonium, or struggling to open jars. TJ Powar Has Something to Prove is her debut novel. Get to know here with 11 Questions! 

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Naheed Phiroze Patel is a graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her writing has appeared in the New England Review, The Guardian, HuffPost, Scroll.in, BOMB Magazine, Public Books, PEN America, The Rumpus, EuropeNow Journal, Asymptote Journal and elsewhere. Get to know her with #11Questions!

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Navdeep Singh Dhillon is the author of Sunny G’s Series of Rash Decisions, an adjunct professor of creative writing and English at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and co-founder of IshqInABackpack, a narrative travel blog. He holds an MFA in creative writing from California State University, Fresno and is a graduate of Voices of Our Nation and the CUNY Writers’ Institute. Born in England, raised in Tanzania, Nigeria, Dubai, and Fresno, California, he is a Punjabi boy at heart.  

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Mónica Guzmán lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties' Dungeons & Dragons campaign.  She’s Director of Digital and Storytelling at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, host of the Crosscut interview series Northwest Newsmakers, and author of the upcoming title from BenBella Books: I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.   

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Namrata Patel is an Indian-American writer who lives in Boston. Her writing examines diaspora, dual-cultural identity among Indian-Americans and explores this dynamic while also touching on both—the family’s we’re born with and those we choose. Namrata has lived in India, Spokane, London, and New York City.   

Namrata has been writing for most of her adult life and loves creating characters who are relatable and aspirational. Her heroines range from quiet to kick-ass and her heroes are swoon-worthy, if a little flawed.   

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Mona is obsessed with everything romantic, including chocolate, coffee and wine. Mona always loved to write, but did not get serious about it until 2011. She entered a contest where she had to start a short story with the words “Heads we get married, tails we break up”. She ended up losing the contest but she really loved the whole process of creating a plot, developing characers and putting a thought down on paper. Her first novel, Now, Then, Always, is a romance novel based on that prompt. When she’s not writing or checking eyes or doing laundry or cooking dinner or chauffeuring around her children, she trains for triathlons and loves to bake. Her favorite part of a triathlon is the bike portion, with swimming a close second. She runs because it’s included in the race. She's blessed with an amazing daughter and loving son who have both gone to college. Mona lives in Maryland with her romance-loving husband.

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