Archives: Authors

Deepak Dalal gave up a career in chemical engineering to write stories for children. He lives in Pune with his wife, two daughters, and several dogs and cats. He enjoys wildlife, nature and the outdoors. All his stories have a strong conservation theme. His earlier books in the Vikramaditya adventure series are set in India’s wilderness destinations. This is his second book in the Feather Tales series.

Born in Kasauli in 1934, Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Shimla. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, which was written when he was seventeen, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written over 500 shortstories, essays and novellas and more than fifty books for children.
He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for English writing in India in 1992, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended family.

Kaustubh Sonalkar is a business strategist, an out-of-the-box-thinker and an incurable believer in the potential of human connections. He uses his background in corporate strategy to sync business agenda with people management. His experience helps him design proactive and predictive policies, with a technologically-first approach. In his 20 years of experience across geographies and industry sectors, his focus has always been on cross-border cultural integration to drive performance. In his constant endeavour to engage with people around him, he focuses on writing for masses across the country, particularly the youth. He is passionate about women empowerment, transgender inclusion and the education of girl children – and believes that technology can go a long way in bridging access.

Kavitha Mandana is the author of Tenali Raman and Akbar, The Mighty Emperor. Her first YA novel was No.9 on the Shade Card. And her picture book, A Pair of Twins, was ranked among the Top 10 books for girls by the American Library Association in 2015 (The Amelia Bloomer List). Her short stories feature in various anthologies and textbooks. For the past eighteen years she’s been writing and illustrating for the Deccan Herald’s children’s supplement.

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan decided she wanted to become an author at sixteen, and didn’t change her mind even when she turned thirty-three and was faced with the bleak financial reality of it. Her first book deal came out of her popular blog Compulsive Confessions (www.compulsiveconfessions.com), which she’s been running as a passion project for the last eleven years. She is also the author of three previous books: You Are Here, The Life & Times of Layla the Ordinary and Cold Feet, as well as a short story collection called Before and Then After. She lives in New Delhi with her partner and their three cats. She hopes to move to Goa soon.

Y. S. Rajan is a physicist by training. He has made key contributions to space research, technology and applications since 1964 and continues to be an expert on space matters. As scientific secretary, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), he was responsible for a combination of scientific, technical, administrative, planning, policy and international cooperation matters from 1976 to 1988. Since then, he has held various other positions of responsibility related to science and technology, and academia. He was vice-chancellor, Punjab Technology University from 2002-04. Rajan has written on a variety of subjects, including science, technology, business, youth, leadership, social and ethical issues, and several poetry books in Tamil and English. He co-wrote the books India 2020 and The Scientific Indian with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Rajan is currently Dr Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor at ISRO Headquarters in Bangalore.

V. Sudarshan has been writing on foreign policy and diplomacy for a number of years, first as Foreign Editor of The Pioneer and subsequently for Outlook. His first book of short stories-A Sense of Ending-was published in 1988. He is now associate editor, the New Indian Express, and lives in Chennai with his wife and daughter.

Vikram Chandra was born in 1961. He divides his time between Mumbai and Washington, DC, where he teaches at George Washington University. He is the author of a novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain which won the David Higham Prize as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Published Book. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. He can be reached by e-mail at vchandra@mindspring.com.