Nayomi Munaweera, author
Nayomi Munaweera is a Sri Lankan-American author. Her debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, was initially published in South Asia in 2013. It was long-listed for the Man Asia Literary Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Prize. It won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia and was short listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. It will be released in the on September 2nd 2014 by St. Martin’s Press. She is currently at work on her second novel and lives in Oakland, California.
Riti Sachdeva, playwright
Riti Sachdeva is a theatre maker, dancer, and cultural worker. She is a 2014-16 Women’s Project Theatre Lab fellow and an alumnus of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater. Her plays have been developed by The Civilians, The Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, The Minneapolis PlayWrights Center, and the National New Play Network. Her play, Parts of Parts & Stitches, received the Kennedy Center’s Quest for Peace award and a world premiere in NYC produced by Manhattan Theatre Works. Riti is a devoted student of flamenco and is primary instigator at midNites cHiLd Productions (http://www.facebook.com/midniteschild)
Ankur Thakkar, writer
Ankur Thakkar is the City of Chicago’s first Digital Director and a Fiction Editor for
TriQuarterly Magazine. His writing has previously appeared in Guernica, TriQuarterly, and as
part of the 2014 Twitter Fiction Festival. He has an MFA in creative writing from Northwestern
University and is writing his first novel.
