Now available for pre-order!
Release date: November 2, 2021
The richness of this story will take hold of you and never let go.” - Roxane Gay
Traveling from the ashrams of India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and examines the need for belief in a fractured world.
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child's blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Kalki is confronted with three trials in his tenth year—tests of his power that will prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. Over the next decade, as the story of his family unravels, his relationship to everyone—his dominating father, his beloved cousin, his cancer-stricken aunt, and the young woman he imagines he will marry—threatens to fall apart. At once a personal tale of youthful searching, and a magisterial, continent spanning tour-de-force, Blue-Skinned Gods is unwaveringly honest and heartbreaking, a powerful novel told through the eyes of a wonderfully winning and idiosyncratic protagonist.
News
Poem publication - "Dominant Genes" in Honey Literary
Winner of Black Lawrence Press 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition - hybrid chapbook Dominant Genes will be released spring 2022 [press release]
Essay publication - "Bombs Fall Like Pollen" in SLICE Magazine
Short story publication - "Wild Ale" in Electric Lit Recommended Reading
Flash nonfiction publication - "Mother" in Cincinnati Review
Poem publication - "Gods in the Surf" at Burrow Press
Interview on the Poetry Vlog [video and podcast]
Marriage of a Thousand Lies featured on Book Riot's Must-Read Books About Complicated Marriages
Marriage of a Thousand Lies featured on Mental Floss 25 Amazing Books by Asian American and Pacific Islander Authors You Need to Read
Marriage of a Thousand Lies is May 2019 Mocha Girls Read Book Club Pick
Guest on Asian American Writers Workshop Radio Podcast
Guest on Minorities in Publishing Podcast
Marriage of a Thousand Lies Longlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature
Guest on LitHub's Fiction/Non/Fiction Podcast