An Author Interview Webinar

Friends,

Please forgive my silence on this blog!  It’s been a pandemic.

I flew back from Chennai to the US on February 20 last year, to be greeted by the rapidly growing Covid crisis in the US.  Also, I had already planned to move from one state to another, so I proceeded with that plan in spite of the pandemic!  It’s been a strange, bizarre, busy and sometimes joyful time.  Thankfully, we got Trump out of the White House.  Thankfully, the vaccines are (slowly) being administered.  And thankfully, I have relocated to a quiet little village in Southern Oregon where I can watch deer, geese, birds and swaying trees from my back porch.

My novel has been on the back burner this year. But it’s on the front burner again!  I’m back to the serious topics in my novel-in-progress – the coming of age and coming out story of a young lesbian in Tamilnadu as she faces an honor killing in her family, police corruption, and pressures to accept a traditional marriage.

Please join me and my former teacher, Bob Granner, for a live webinar book interview on Saturday Feb. 13, (11 am US Eastern time, 8 am US Pacific time, 21:30 India standard time)

We’ll be discussing the story, the modern issues it raises, and the thorny questions surrounding a white American writing an indigenous South Indian story.  Do I have the “right” to tell this story? All my characters are Indian.  Only one minor character has lived in the West.  A major character is an ayah, an outcaste. My parents were white Christian missionaries, albeit liberal ones.  What literary challenges does cross-cultural and cross-class storytelling raise, particularly in the context of India’s colonial history?

I hope you might register for this online, live event.  If not, I hope you might view the recorded interview at a later date.  I do hope to hear comments, particularly from my Indian friends.

Details