Sneha Gindodiya
Sneha Gindodiya is an Indian-born artist based in California, whose creative journey began as soon as she could hold a crayon. Raised in a culture rich with color and tradition, she nurtured her passion for art alongside academic excellence in math and science. Her path led her from boarding school in the Himalayas to engineering studies in Bangalore and later to Chicago, where she launched a successful career as a Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineer. Despite her achievements in the corporate world, Sneha felt a deep inner pull toward artistic expression. In 2023, she set out to make her art career as successful as her corporate one, channeling years of introspection, discipline, and observation into her practice. Her work explores femininity, identity, self-formation, introspective times, and the nuanced layers of beauty often overlooked. With intricate detailing, ornate motifs, and vibrant textures, Sneha’s art reflects her transformation, illuminating the quiet strength and complexity that have always defined her.
Evani Radiya Dixit
Evani Radiya-Dixit is an artist and a researcher from San Jose, California. Evani’s creative practice spans painting, collage, and poetry. Evani draws upon personal stories and imaginings of collective liberation to explore the themes of gender, identity, diaspora, technology, and social justice in their work. Evani’s visual art was recently featured in an installation at the 2025 Re-Imagining Cryptography and Privacy Workshop. As a poet, Evani was a semifinalist at the UK UniSlam Poetry Festival and a Poetry Fellow at the Rooted & Written Writing Conference. Currently, Evani is based in New York City, where they are a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Alongside their creative practices, Evani deeply cares about social justice in the use and governance of artificial intelligence and is an Algorithmic Justice Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Sarabjit Singh
Sarabjit Singh is a California-based artist whose work bridges history, culture, and storytelling through a deeply spiritual and contemporary lens. With her roots in Sikhism and over three decades of artistic practice, Sarabjit draws on themes of identity, diaspora, and the sacred, weaving elements of Sikh heritage and broader South Asian narratives into evocative paintings and mixed media works. Her art has been exhibited internationally and is recognized for its emotional resonance, vibrant color palette, and layered symbolism. Sarabjit’s creative journey is rooted in both devotion and inquiry—exploring not just what it means to remember, but how we carry memory forward. She continues to use art as a means of dialogue, healing, and cultural preservation.
Her art can be viewed at:
https://www.artofsarabjitsingh.com/
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/sarabjit-singh
@artofsarabjitsingh
Sarah K Khan
A multimedia maker, Sarah Khurshid Khan’s latest projects center on the Ni’matnāma, The Book of Delights/Book of Blessing, a 16thcentury illuminated courtly culture and cookbook from Central India. Via prints, animation and porcelain, Khan creates an unbound world where unfettered femmes blossom to chart new realms. Grounded in extensive research, she engages in a form of visual critical fabulation. She centers her cultural heritage and its many artistic practices to imagine and inscribe dismissed narratives into a more inclusive, global visual culture. With Langston Hughes and Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poems in mind, Khan encourages all to “Speak” Sing Shout because "I, too, sing America" and the world.
Instagram sarahkkhan
LinkedIn sarahkkhan
Benjamin
Benjamin Puma, is a visual artist and cultural manager born in Lima, Peru, who currently resides in Oakland, CA.
After moving to the Bay Area two and half years ago, he continued teaching art to children and young people at Tradicion Peruana Cultural Center. He also started his own brand Monfu Project, a project with which he plans to create new spaces and opportunities for artists and art lovers.
Being a self-taught artist, who is dedicated to painting and digital art, he has put into practice different techniques and styles, both in his murals, graffiti, paintings on canvas, illustrations, and more recently in screen printing and linocut. He adapts his works to his own concept and currently finds inspiration in the elements of his country and in the synergy that surrounds psychedelia and mysticism within the different ancestral cultures of ancient Peru.
Instagram: @monfucat1
Ragini Prasad
Ragini Prasad creates contemporary artworks from her studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is accredited by the National Institute of Mithila Art in Bihar, India. She has also explored abstract art at Stanford University. Ragini combines her traditional techniques and fundamentals with elements of modern art. Her works reflect and merge the historical significance of Mithila art with the innovative spirit of the Bay Area and California. She draws inspiration from California's breathtaking landscapes and the beautiful San Francisco cityscape. She captures landmarks, vibrant neighborhoods, and other iconic aspects of the San Francisco Bay Area's culture. Some of her significant work at public art City Hall, Sunnyvale and part of Stanford Hospital Art Collection.
My insta: raginiartist
Raji Musinipally
Raji Musinipally’s style of painting spans two worlds, both Indian and Western art. Raji has a Fine Arts degree from India and after making the Bay Area her home, she has masterfully blended the two influences into her work and created her own unique style. This includes Indian folk-art elements and Western Impressionist and Abstract techniques that are often blended beautifully in a single work of art.
Raji is inspired by the San Francisco skyline which you see in her cityscapes, and her abstract figurative work is very thought provoking.
Raji has had several open studios over the years, participated in group shows at galleries in San Francisco, and has done many commissioned pieces.
Raji’s work can be viewed on her website – www.rajiartstudio.com
Instagram - @rajizcanvas
Sharony Roy
Sharony Ray is an emerging abstract artist based in San Francisco. Trained in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, she began her creative journey exploring architectural forms under the guidance of her mother, a renowned artist in India. With a background as an engineer-artist, her practice centers on minimalistic geometric abstraction, where color, shape, and composition create layered narratives. Primarily working in oil, Sharony builds textured, contemplative works that invite open interpretation. She has exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, earning recognition including the Curator’s Choice Award at SFWA
Instagram: @sharonyroy
Shravan Bhardwaj
Shravan Bharadwaj is a digital artist reimagining contemporary societal struggles. Using generative AI and custom digital workflows, he creates visuals that evoke layered meanings and deeper reflection. Shaped by his experience as a first-generation Indian immigrant, Shravan’s work explores how Eastern and Western values intersect in modern artistic expression. Based in Los Altos, Shravan invites viewers into quiet introspection and meaningful dialogue about the evolving fabric of society.
Selected Artists
Creative Writing Workshop by
Dr. Nandita Dinesh
Sunday, September 14
www.nanditadinesh.com
Acclaimed author, educator, researcher, and theatre-maker Dr. Nandita Dinesh is offering a limited number of personalized one-on-one consultations for individuals working on storytelling projects. With her intercultural and interdisciplinary expertise, she will provide tailored guidance based on the goals and questions you submit in advance.
Only 8 spots available — don’t miss this opportunity to refine your story.
Preeti Parekh
Preeti Parikh is a poet and essayist with a past educational background in medicine and a recent MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. A Kundiman Fellow and National Poetry Series Finalist, she is the recipient of a 2024 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for Poetry, a 2023 Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant Award, and a 2022 Millay Arts Residency. Her writing is published in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Cincinnati Review, The Margins, and other literary journals and anthologies. Born and raised in India, she now lives with her family in Ohio.
Preeti’s debut collection of poems, BLUE SELVAGE, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2026.
Rashna Wadia
Rashna Wadia is a poet and editor living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in wildness, Black Warrior Review, Tinderbox, Terrain.org, RHINO, Whale Road Review, The Margins, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She writes about othering of land and body, and draws upon migration stories of the Parsi diaspora. She has received residencies from Tin House, Orion, and the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshops, and is the poetry editor for Fahmidan Journal and Harbor Review.
Athira Uni
Athira Unni is a researcher and writer living in California. She has a PhD in English Literature. Her first book of poetry “Gaea and Other Poems” was published in 2020. Her second book of poetry is forthcoming with Red River Press. She enjoys a good cup of tea and is fascinated by octopuses.
Monica Korde
Monica Korde is an artist, poet and passionate advocate for youth engagement in the arts. She leads workshops and programs that fuse poetry with music, dance, and youth expression across cultures. Project POETRY 360, a community-led initiative she founded celebrates the voices and artistry of multigenerational BIPOC, LGBTQ+, AAPI and immigrant poets & writers through immersive projects and curated literary readings, both online and in-person. Appointed in 2021, she continues to serve as the Poet Laureate of Belmont, California. Originally from India, she is honored to be the city's first South Asian immigrant to hold this role.
Devi Laskar
Devi S. Laskar is a poet, novelist, artist, photographer, musician, former newspaper reporter. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks; and her debut poetry collection, Self-Portraits Ex Machina is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Laskar is the author of the award-winning novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues, and recently, Circa. Her third novel, Midnight, At The War is forthcoming from Mariner Books and her first spoken-word album is coming out in November 2025. She holds degrees from Columbia University, University of Illinois and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Nidhi Jaisoor
Nidhi Jaisoor (she/her) is a South Asian writer, disability advocate, and mother. Her writing explores themes of cultural identity, the body, the immigrant experience, and parenting.
She was a VONA summer resident, and is an alum of the Tin House Winter Workshop, the Interdisciplinary Writers Lab at Kearny Street, and Rooted & Written (at the SF Writer’s Grotto). She is currently based in San Jose, and when not parenting her two young children, is working on a collection of short stories.
Learn more about her work at www.nsjaisoor.com
Praniti Gulyani
Praniti Gulyani is a senior at UC Berkeley studying English with minors in Creative Writing and Journalism. She has written over 100 pieces across genres—fiction, poetry, essays, and longform journalism—with bylines at Mid Atlantic Media and an upcoming feature in The Stanford Daily. She is the founder of We Are Cal and author of The Student’s Vanguard, and has presented her literary research at international conferences, including at Johns Hopkins University. Her work explores the intersections of literature, justice, and lived experience.
Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan
As a poet and a writer of books for children, I've published picture books in quatrains, I've written narratives in rhyme, and I've crafted an award-winning Poetry Reader that instructs on poetic forms and literary terms to introduce young readers to the world of poetry. But, today, as I spend more and more time with my aging mother, and observe daily how the years strip us of what we once were, my poems are often expressions of the strength it takes to make a whole. I am an author of a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction published in India and the United States and an award-winning voice-over artist who won the 68th National Film Awards, India, for Best Narration Voice Over in 2022. I also worked for almost two decades as a non-profit development professional and as an advocate and fundraiser for persons with disabilities.
Sophia Naz
Sophia Naz has authored the poetry collections Bark Archipelago (Weavers Press, San Francisco & Red River India), Open Zero (Yoda Press), Pointillism (Copper Coin ), Date Palms (City Press ), Peripheries (Cyberhex )and Shehnaz, a biography (Penguin Random House) Her work appears in The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Daily, The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, The Night Heron Barks, Singing in the Dark, Berfrois, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rattle, The Adirondack Review and many others.
She can be found at www.sophianaz.com
Selected Poets
Prose Readers
Aprajita D Sadhu
Aprajita co-founded Ukti, the first Waldorf school in North India, as a passion project. With her vision and guidance, Ukti grew into a place where teachers taught from inspiration and children learned with joy and vigor. Inspired by the work, she quit her career as an economist to teach middle-schoolers through the COVID-19 pandemic–a powerful, transformative experience. Today, she teaches highschoolers at San Francisco Waldorf School and enjoys learning from the younger generation. Her conviction in the human potential to create a life of purpose drives her to grow new capacities in herself and inspire others to do the same.
Majella Pinto
Majella Pinto, is a California based Indian-American writer. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, LA.
Her work explores politics, feminism, and culture through the lens of a Mangalorean Catholic. On occasion she is known to write comedic plays, because we need to laugh every now and then. She is a Six Sigma Black Belt. Majella has served in editorial roles for Lunch Ticket. Her work has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Dairy Hollow Echo and elsewhere. When she is not outdoors, she is painting. Majella believes that more conversations across a table, with a simple spread of food, cooked with love, are needed to nurture and build communities and break down bridges. She lives in Campbell with her husband.
Neerja Raman
Award winning author and scientist, Neerja Raman is the first woman of Indian origin to be inducted in the Hall of Fame, Women in Technology International. Her writing - fiction, non-fiction and memoir - blends diverse experiences working in business, academia, and government as well as motherhood and tending her inner child through gardening and weeding.
Rohan Srinivasan
Rohan Srinivasan is a writer based out of California. He published his debut novel An Imagined Life at the age of 24. He holds a bachelor’s in film and television production from the University of Southern California. He loves long walks, emotional novels, and thoughtful conversations
Ruth Alexander
Ruth Alexander (of Indian ancestry) was born in Cape Town, District Six, South Africa. She has resided in beautiful Monte Sereno (Silicon Valley), California, USA., for 36+ years. The fictional short stories of “Born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa” are mainly written about District Six (D6).
She studied and graduated as a Fashion Designer from the Pacific Fashion Institute in San Francisco, California, and sold her clothing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also had a non-profit organization in the Bay Area and was a Bharatanatyam dancer and pioneered using the language of Indian Classical Ballet to English hymns and songs, the gospel, and produced shows for the elderly/children with her family for approximately. 19 years in the Bay Area and abroad.
Sandip Mathur
Dr Mathur is a gastroenterologist and has been practicing in West Texas for over thirty years.
His wife is an architect and they have two daughters and three grand children.
He enjoys writing, working out, hiking, cooking, and gardening.
He has been in Texas Monthly’s Best Doctors List for the last five years.
He has written a three book series based upon his life and his patients. He is working on another book.
