Roopa Pai
Roopa Pai is one of India’s best-known children’s authors. This computer engineer has written more than 25 books, spanning the gamut from picture books to chapter books, and fiction and non-fiction, on themes as diverse as sci-fi fantasy, popular science, history, economics, philosophy, math and life skills. Her books, which include the award-winning national bestseller The Gita for Children, the very popular So You Want To Know About Economics, and Taranauts, India’s first complete fantasy-adventure series for children in English, are enjoyed by readers of all ages.
Richa Jha
Richa Jha is an Indian author, blogger, publisher and picture book enthusiast. She is an independent creator of picture books in English under her PICKLE YOLK BOOKS imprint. She has written twelve picture books and edited an anthology for young adults. Over the last four years, her various titles have been shortlisted for the prestigious Crossword Award, Publishing Next Industry Awards and the FICCI Publishing Award. She is an avid reader and indefatigable traveller.
Janaki Sabesh
Janaki Sabesh is the founder of Golpo-Tales Unlimited, a storytelling initiative based in Chennai. Through Golpo, Janaki spreads the joy of stories to adults and children alike in her inimitable style – using a mix of theatre movements and music to create magic. Some of the major events she has performed at include the Hindu Lit for life Children’s Fest, Chennai, Kitaabo – the Children’s lit Fest, Jodhpur; she also regularly collaborates with Karadi Tales and Tulika Publishers for performances. A seasoned voice-over artiste and model, Janaki has also acted in more than 25+ Tamil films, like Jeans, Ghilli, Singham etc. and is a theatre artist.
Seema Wahi Mukherjee
Seema Wahi Mukherjee is an International Story Teller, a Story Coach and an Educator, an Experiential Education facilitator and Instructional Designer. Seema enables schools across the country to integrate stories into the curriculum. The main objective of her work at schools, is to make classroom transactions engaging and relatable for children. An innovative and interactive storyteller, Seema uses puppetry, crafts and dramatics to connect with the audience through her stories.
Priya Kuriyan
Priya Kuriyan is a graduate of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, and she made her entry into the world of illustrations through Tulika Books. She is a well-known comic artist and children’s book illustrator from New Delhi, and has illustrated several delightful childrens books including books written by Ruskin Bond. She conducts illustration workshops for children at Literary Fests.
Sowmya Rajendran
Sowmya Rajendran has written books for children across age groups, from picture books for the tiny ones to young adult fiction. She won the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, co-authored with Niveditha Subramaniam, in 2015. Sowmya currently works for The News Minute, writing on gender, culture and cinema.
Tanushree Singh
Dr. Tanu Shree Singh is a Professor of Psychology, specialising in Positive Psychology. Tanu runs two online reading groups of around 44000 people, and has set up two libraries with more coming up soon. Her book Keep Calm and Mommy On is much loved and acclaimed. Her latest is a biography of C.V. Raman with DK Books. She also writes for leading online dailies.
Sushree Mishra
Sushree Mishra is an educator, storyteller, and reading specialist who loves to weave stories for children by delving into their world of imagination. She has worked with several NGOs and publishing houses in India and the US. She is the author of The Night Monster published by independent children’s publishing house, Karadi Tales.
Ashwathy P.S.
Ashwathy P.S. is an in-house illustrator and designer at Karadi Tales, a Chennai-based children’s publishing house. She co-created a unique counting book, One Dark Cloud, in which the illustrations are completely made of paper collages using everyday material. Other books she has illustrated for Karadi Tales include Fly, Little Fish!, illustrated entirely in Gond art style.
Deepa Kiran
Deepa Kiran is the founder of Story Arts Foundation. She is a storyteller, educationalist, writer and voice-over artist. She works with schools, cultural centers, bookstores, publishing houses, NGOs, government, and corporate institutions. Her videos on UGC for teacher-training have received a national award and through her trust, she has recently completed a project of training 2200 government school teachers. She has participated in several International Storytelling Festivals in Scotland, Iran, Austria, Italy, Greece etc and National Festivals such as Kala Ghoda Festival, Hyderabad Literature Festival. She is also a TEDx Talk speaker.
Bongiswa Kotta- Ramushwana
Bongiswa Kotta- Ramushwana has been a storyteller for fourteen years, she currently works at Freedom Park Heritage Institution as a storyteller full time. She tells stories to a different audience and to corporates too. The reason she tells stories is to awake stories in others which leads to a healing process. She has performed for a different audience in and out of South Africa. she performs for children, adults, corporate clients and themed functions and so on. She has been involved in an international storytelling festival in Norway Oslo in 2006 and recently performed in the Sigana International Storytelling Festival in Kenya. she loves telling stories to children, dance and sings with them. She is also a Motivational Speaker, MC, Writer, Praise Singer and a qualified Interpreter (South African Sign language, English, and Isixhosa). She also tells stories on UNISA radio station every Fridays.
Sherin Mathews
Sherin Mathews, a storyteller, a therapist and a trainer based in Mumbai, has been working with children and adults since last 12 years. She is the founder of ‘Storynest’ – a development centre that fosters confidence and beliefs in young minds through the medium of storytelling. Through her firm Storynest, Sherin uses storytelling as a medium through which formative years of young minds are tuned to become aware of the resources necessary to find answers within each person. Sherin has been trained and certified in Storytelling, Puppetry, Dream Therapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Aparna Raman
Aparna Raman is a writer, creative writing workshop facilitator, and the founder of ‘Timbuktoo Young Authors Publishing’ – India’s first ‘by kids, for kids’ publishing platform. Timbuktoo publishes stories written only by children and has launched 200 young authors across India, Colombo, Dubai, Hawaii, London and Singapore. Aparna has conducted readings and workshops at Litfests such as Bookaroo, the Bangalore Poetry Festival, Kala Ghoda, Kalaedo by KLAY Schools, Makkala Koota and Peek-a-book, Mumbai. She has worked with Re-reeti to increase footfalls into museums and encourages children to write on environmental causes. (The Knights for Queens protest prevented the felling of 100 year old trees at Queen’s Hospital). Aparna is also a faculty member of the Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Bangalore.
Reshma Krishnan Barshikar
Travel writer and novelist Reshma Krishnan Barshikar is an erstwhile Investment Banker who, as she tells it, ‘fell down a rabbit hole and discovered a world outside a fluorescent cubicle.’ As a travel and features writer, she contributes to National Geographic Traveller, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia, The Sunday Guardian, SilverKris, The Mint Lounge and The Hindu. She is also a co-founder of the literary blog ‘The Caterpillar Cafe’. Fade Into Red, published by Random House was her debut novel and was featured in Amazon Top 10 Bestsellers. She also holds well renowned workshops for young adults at both BDL Museum and Kala Ghoda and is very keen to build a strong Young Adult reading and writing community to fill the desperate lack of young adult fiction in the Indian Market. Her new Young Adult novel will be launching at the festival. Reshma is from the ISB Class of 2003. She calls both Mumbai and the Nilgiris home. All her work can be found on www.reshmakrishnan.com
Daya Subramanian
Daya Subramanian lives in Chennai, India and works as an editor. She has a Master’s in
Publishing from Oxford Brookes University where her thesis focused on children’s publishing in
India. She occasionally writes for The Hindu in the children’s literature section and spends the
rest of her free time reading, writing, or playing with her two cats.