Lila Krishna Writes Novels

I am a writer, a blogger, an AI programmer, a mom, and everything in between. I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 10 years.

Writer

I used to be a comedy writer with dreams of writing on Saturday Night Live,  but when I switched to writing short stories to get better at plot, I realized I liked it better, and stayed.

I enjoy writing emotionally mature, slice-of-life stories, usually set among the Indian diaspora.

When I was digging into the history of the Indian diaspora in the US and UK, I found that the people back then were quite the same as Indian students and workers who emigrate today! The challenges of finding a vegetarian restaurant, cheap yet clean rooms, and being annoyed by compatriots who tried really hard to impress white people, have not changed in more than a 100 years! Except, people back then were using the Indian associations and free food to organize and fight for Indian independence from the British.

Now, I write novels set in the revolutionary strain of the Indian Independence Movement. The stories start in London and Paris, move to Berkeley, San Francisco, and Berlin, with glimpses of the Caribbean and North Africa, before going half a world away to Japan and Singapore, and then going on a trip all over India.

Just your average NRI students posing…. before getting their boarding house shut down for revolutionary activities.

Blogger

I have been blogging since 2005. I used to write navel-gazing personal essays for about ten years, but I grew up and prefer now to write long, in-depth pieces that dive deep into a topic, often going through research papers and books. I update my blog with

• Excerpts from my upcoming novel, India House
• Collections of links about history, archaeology, technological advances, books, and awesome GIFs – and anything else that inspires me to write.
• Book summaries, research summaries about productivity, creativity, and being your best self.

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