about


I am a fiction writer, writing studies researcher, and writing studies teacher. I have a Ph.D in English Studies (with emphasis in Creative Writing) from Illinois State University. My dissertation was an amalgamation of three strands of research: a novel (a work still in progress) based on 1999 “supercyclone” that hit Orissa, the aesthetic potential of suspense, and the usefulness of constraint-based writing methods in creative writing classrooms. I also hold an MFA in Creative Writing from North Carolina State University (USA), where I worked with eminent authors, Wilton Barnhardt, John Kessel, and Jill McCorkle. In 2012, I received the Tom Kuster Creative Writing Award at Illinois State University. I also served as Sr. Editorial Assistant, Blog Editor, and Website Manager for Spoon River Poetry Review for nearly seven years. My research interests include craft of fiction writing, creative writing pedagogy, writing process, new media writing, and experimental aesthetics.

My teaching experience includes creative writing (Intermediate and Introductory), freshman composition, academic writing, and introduction to literature.

My aesthetic is shaped by writers like Franz Kafka, Gabriel García Márquez, William Faulkner, and R. K. Narayan. Not a wholehearted subscriber to any single -isms (Realism, Surrealism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Post-postmodernism…), I pledge my allegiance to hybridity, transcendence, and borderline aesthetics.

Currently, I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Swarthmore College. Previously, I have taught at University of Delaware, Illinois State University, and North Carolina State University.

Samples of my published fiction:

A sample of my critical work can be viewed at the Spoon River Poetry Review’s blog.

You can write to me using the form below: