Selected Artists
Nikhil Dev
Nikhil Dev is a California-based artist and designer whose practice explores form, space, color, and structure. Drawing from his Indian roots and background in systems design, he deconstructs landscapes into abstract arrangements of surfaces, patterns, and relationships. His vibrant, high-chroma works use rhythm, saturation, contrast, and deliberate mark-making to translate lived environments into cohesive visual compositions, reflecting the influence of artists such as David Hockney and Jonas Wood.
Vaishali Sanghavi
Vaishali Sanghavi is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice bridges her Indian heritage with a global perspective. Drawing from her experiences with traditional artisans across India, she combines heritage techniques with contemporary materials and approaches. Her mosaic and textile works explore cultural exchange, movement, and materiality, bringing together diverse influences into cohesive compositions. Through tactile, process-driven works, Vaishali reimagines traditional craft while creating a contemporary visual language rooted in connection, exploration, and cultural dialogue.
Ragini Prasad
Ragini Prasad is a contemporary artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, accredited by the National Institute of Mithila Art and trained in abstract art at Stanford University. Her practice explores landscapes through lines, marks, patterns, and repetition, drawing inspiration from California’s hills, fog, and built environment. Combining structure with movement, Ragini creates intuitive abstract works that invite viewers to slow down, look closely, and discover their own connections.
Bianca Dutta
Bianca Datta grew up in Maryland and has lived in San Francisco for the past four years. Formally, she trained as a scientist (studying the colors of butterfly wings) and now works at a nonprofit building community around alternative proteins and sustainable foods. She is a 2026 Fellow of the Writer's Grotto Rooted and Written program, and an upcoming participant in the Summer 2026 Interdisciplinary Writer's Lab through Kearny Street Workshop. Her work has been featured on KQED perspectives. She loves long, meandering conversations, drinking tea, and exploring new neighborhoods on foot.
Harleen Serai
Harleen Serai holds a Master of Fine Arts from Saint Mary's College of California and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia. She has spent two decades as a software engineer and engineering manager in Silicon Valley, alongside a growing body of creative work. Her writing brings together her love of English and South Asian poetry. Find her poetry and Punjabi translations at harleenserai.com.
A high-resolution headshot: Attached
Your social media handles:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/harleenserai.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harleenserai/
Karan Gupta
Karan Gupta is the inaugural San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate (2025–2027), a poet, student, researcher, and community builder exploring what makes us human. His work has been performed at the San Francisco Public Library and on the Super Bowl stage, with poetry forthcoming in the ASCO Global Oncology Arts Anthology. He is the founder and executive director of PlayKits, a nonprofit creating evidence-based play therapy kits for trauma-affected youth. At UCSF Neuroscape, he researches robotics and human-machine interaction. Through poetry, games, art, and community initiatives, Karan creates spaces for connection, curiosity, cultural expression, and meaningful conversations among young people.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karanguptasf/.
Samina Najmi
Samina Najmi teaches multiethnic US literature at California State University, Fresno. Her memoir-in-essays, Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time, won the Aurora Polaris Award in Creative Nonfiction and was published by Trio House Press in Oct, 2025. It has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and is featured among Poets & Writers’ five nonfiction debuts of the year and Debutiful’s Best Nonfiction Debuts of 2025. The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) includes it among notable 2025 nonfiction debuts and its recommended reading lists for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month 2025 and Women’s History Month 2026. Daughter of multigenerational migrations, Samina grew up in Pakistan and England, began her American life in Boston, and has called Fresno home since 2006. Visit her at saminanajmi.com.
Sabina Khan
Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pakistani Pashtun Muslim American writer, poet, educator, and arts leader. She is Director of Rooted & Written at The Writers Grotto, serves as the 2026 San Mateo County Fellow for the Bay Area Artist Census, and teaches creative writing through The Writers Grotto, the San Diego Writers Ink, and Litquake’s Elder Project. Her writing explores memory, family, migration, inheritance, and belonging, and has appeared in literary journals, such as Agni, SWWIM, anthologies, and HuffPost. She is a member of The Writers Grotto and The Authors Guild and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She lives on the Northern California coast.
Headshot: Attached
Website: https://sabinakhanibarra.com
Social Media:
Instagram: @sabinaki_writes
Preeti Vangani
Preeti Vangani is a poet & writer from Bombay based in San Francisco. She is the author of the poetry collections, Mother Tongue Apologize (2019) and Fifty Mothers, (River River Books, 2026). Her work has appeared in AGNI, The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, among other places. Her debut short story won the PEN/Dau Emerging Writers Prize.Vangani has been a resident at UCross, Djerassi and Ragdale. She has received artist grants from San Francisco Arts Commission, YBCA, and is a current Steinbeck fellow. She holds an MFA in Writing from University of San Francisco and teaches in the program.
My book is available via Itasca https://itascabooks.com/products/fifty-mothers-poems
Selected Poets
Prose Readers
Anusha
Anusha is an emerging writer from India who now lives in Chicago. She has always loved literature, especially stories that make us question who we are, where we feel we belong and why we do the things we do. She is also the founder of a company called rooh (withrooh.com), created to bring people together through meaningful conversations, stories and ideas.
Alvir
Alvir grew up listening to gripping accounts of the 1947 Partition from family who crossed the freshly drawn borders. Fueled with research and imagination, Alvir transforms oral history into short stories of belonging and beginnings.
Bindhu
Therapist. Writer. Painter.
Bindhu listens for the stories beneath the silence, gathers words that heal, and paints what cannot always be spoken. Her work lives where compassion meets creativity—inviting reflection, connection, and the quiet courage to become more fully ourselves. She is currently working on a collection of short film scripts.
Niru
Nirupama Vaidhyanathan is a multifaceted artist - dancer, writer, storyteller, and educator. She has performed Bharatanatyam worldwide to critical acclaim. She has presented dance theater productions - on the river Kaveri, a biography of Tamizh, and a performing arts adaptation of a book by Shoba Narayan titled ‘Food and Faith.” She is the former editor of India Currents magazine and has received several writing awards from the San Francisco Press Club. The book - Voyages of Body, Mind and Soul - carries a chapter written by her comparing the poetry of the Hindu saint Meerabai and the prose of the Catholic saint Teresa of Avila.
Salman
Salman Ansari lives his life playing with many pursuits rather than specializing in a single path. He's worn different hats over the years—software engineer, startup founder & CTO, writer, illustrator, and DJ, to name a few. He writes philosophical fables and essays on creativity in his email newsletter, Quick Brown Fox. In 2024 he released his debut book of modern fables, Wandering Spirits, which he also illustrated and narrated himself.
Siddharth
Siddharth is a prolific writer of poetry and fiction, and holds a Master’s degree in critical comparative scriptures. He lives in California immersed in his study of ancient texts and mythologies, the search for planets in outer space, and a lifelong practice of Tae Kwon Do.
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Shruti
Shruti Tewari is a writer, filmmaker, and actor from the Bay Area, currently developing a short story collection. After winning several accolades for her screenplays and stage plays, which served as the basis for three short films, she is enjoying reconnecting with the purest form of storytelling. An avid reader, her training also includes the Granta Short Fiction Workshop and the Interdisciplinary Writers Lab through Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco.
Nidhi
Nidhi Jaisoor (she/her) is a writer, disability advocate, and mother. Her writing explores themes of motherhood, disability, the immigrant experience, and cultural identity.
She is an alum of VONA, Tin House, Kearny Street and the Writers Grotto. She is based in San Jose and working on a collection of prose-poetry. Learn more about her work at www.nsjaisoor.com
Neha
Neha Gandhi is a poet and dreamer who believes in the magic of ordinary moments. Her writing seeks to explore the connection between love, identity, and the universe. When she's not writing, Neha is probably trying a new ice cream shop, sketching abstract art, or perfecting her recipe for the perfect cup of chai. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection in San Francisco, California.
