Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Veena Rao.
Veena Rao is the author of Purple Lotus: A Novel (She Writes Press), as well as founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of NRI Pulse, a popular Atlanta-based Indian-American news publication. She is in the Limca Book of Records as the first Indian-origin woman to edit and publish a newspaper outside India.
Veena Rao has a background in print journalism, having worked on the news desk of The Indian Express in India, and a couple of community publications in Atlanta as editor. She has a Masters’ Diploma in Journalism and Communication from Symbiosis International University and a Masters’ in Economics from Fergusson College, India.
She has been featured in several major Asian print publications including the BBC Telugu, the Hindu, Indian Express, Gulf News, the Khaleej Times, India Review etc. She currently lives in Tucker, GA.
In this episode Veena and I discuss:
- How her life circumstances forced her creative writing to take a backseat and how she got her writing life back.
- What skills her journalism background afforded her when approaching difficult topics such as domestic abuse and mental illness.
- Why She Writes Press was a great fit for the kind of book Veena wanted to write.
Plus, their #1 tip for writers.
About the Author
Veena Rao is the author of Purple Lotus: A Novel (She Writes Press), as well as founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of NRI Pulse, a popular Atlanta-based Indian-American news publication. She is in the Limca Book of Records as the first Indian-origin woman to edit and publish a newspaper outside India.
Veena Rao has a background in print journalism, having worked on the news desk of The Indian Express in India, and a couple of community publications in Atlanta as editor. She has a Masters’ Diploma in Journalism and Communication from Symbiosis International University and a Masters’ in Economics from Fergusson College, India.
She has been featured in several major Asian print publications including the BBC Telugu, the Hindu, Indian Express, Gulf News, the Khaleej Times, India Review etc. She currently lives in Tucker, GA.
You can find out more about Veena on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
PURPLE LOTUS: A Novel by Veena Rao
Providing the reader with a glimpse into small town Indian culture in the American South, the forthcoming debut Purple Lotus: A Novel by Veena Rao (on sale September 29, She Writes Press) is a timely and important addition to Southern literature that takes an oft told immigrant story of identity and assimilation and makes it a visceral, layered, ultimately feminist narrative of a woman’s journey in America.
Winner of the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest, Purple Lotus is an invaluable #OwnVoices story personalizing the immigrant experience with a universal message: there’s hope even if you feel inadequate, powerless, fearful. It is never too late to take control of your life – we must choose to live, not just exist. Dealing with themes of domestic violence, fighting the patriarchy, and seeking the right to self-determination, Purple Lotus is a story inspired by Rao’s own experiences as an Indian immigrant in Atlanta, GA.
Three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay, Tara moves to the American South from Mangalore, India. Tara’s memories of childhood abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse at the hands of her husband. Constantly pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances, Tara learns to confront the victim-shaming society she was raised within, finding strength, self-worth and support in kind-hearted strangers, new friends and her first love.
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Link to Episode 334
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