SAWN Monthly Spotlight: Payal Doshi
Learn about Payal Doshi's remarkable journey of passion and resilience in this month's #SAWNSpotlight! And check out some amazing recommendations to add to your list.
1. Tell us about your work and what drew you to becoming an author.
Hi there! I’m Payal Doshi, author of Rea and the Blood of the Nectar, a middle-grade fantasy novel for ages 8-12 years, and a contributing author in the young adult anthology My Big, Fat Desi Wedding. I love writing stories that center around South Asian joy and feature Indian main characters who embark on fantastical adventures, explore the trials and tribulations of the human experience, and are relatable to kids and adults all over the world.
Oh, my journey to becoming an author was long and winded! I was a young girl when I fell in love with reading. I loved how words could be spun together to create stories readers escaped into. However, I never considered reading any more than a hobby and went on to pursue a degree in business management. Though management interested me, I knew I wanted to be in a more creative role and began working as a Features Editor at a luxury and lifestyle magazine in Mumbai. Writing articles whet my desire to spin words into beautiful sentences, but writing articles dictated by an editor or the magazine’s monthly themes soon stifled me. Although I loved writing, I realized it had to be something I wanted to write.
As a kid who grew up in Mumbai in the 90s and 2000s, I’d never read children’s books with Indian main characters. Only in adulthood did I voraciously read Indian authors such as Arundhati Roy, Ashok Banker, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, etc. Since fantasy is my favorite genre to read, I naturally gravitated towards writing a fantasy story. However, it took 70,000 words and a writing teacher who asked me why all the characters in my story were white for me to pause and think about what I really wanted to say with my stories.
I couldn’t believe I’d subconsciously erased my identity and written a story that was completely whitewashed. I started to question why there weren’t any books for kids aged 8, 9, 10, and up with Indian kids as main characters. Or why weren’t there books with Indian kids going on swashbuckling adventures, riding dragons, having magic, being heroes, and saving the world? I knew immediately I wanted to change that abysmal statistic and write stories for kids that were empowering, joyful, and had Indian kids, who were proud of their culture and heritage, at the front and center.
2. Can you talk to us about your professional journey? What are some of the challenges you faced when you were starting out?
The biggest challenge I faced in my professional journey was trying to find an agent and subsequently a publisher for REA. I quickly realized my story didn’t fit in the industry’s expectations of a ‘story from a writer of color.’
Recommended by LinkedIn
At the time, there were barely any kids’ books with characters from different cultures that were lighthearted, fun, and centered around fantasy and adventure stories. Most of the books written by authors of color tackled more challenging topics such as immigration, the struggle for identity, bullying, escaping war, being a refugee, etc. Despite REA exploring themes of friendship, family, and courage, I received over 80+ rejections over the course of one and a half years. I was told the book wasn’t ‘Indian’ enough, didn’t focus on social issues faced in developing countries, wasn’t inspired by Indian mythology, or my personal favorite that they’d just signed with another South Asian Indian author who’d written a middle-grade fantasy (as if there couldn’t be more than one of us or more than one type of story to tell!). It was a difficult time, to say the least, and I’d begun believing my story was unpublishable. But I didn’t want to give up.
One day, I came across a publisher named Bharat Babies (now Mango and Marigold Press), run by a first-generation Indian American woman who started the press because she wanted her daughter to have books where she could see herself and celebrate her South Asian heritage. I reached out, and a year later, the rest was history!
3. What do you consider your biggest accomplishment so far?
Writing and publishing a book is not for the fainthearted! So, in my professional life, that’s what I consider my most significant accomplishment. In my personal life, however, raising my daughter and watching her blossom into a lovely young kid tops the list!
4. What advice would you give someone who is interested in starting out in their writing path?
The only advice is to write. Writing is rewriting, often requiring countless drafts and innumerable edits to land on the story you want to tell. So, don’t give up when it gets hard or frustrating. Write until that very last period, no matter how terrible you think your words are. Trust me, the best writers feel that way too!
My next piece of advice is to read, read, read! Read in the genre you want to write in to understand what readers are reading these days. Study the craft through seminars, webinars, classes, workshops, and even video tutorials on YouTube. But most of all, keep writing!
5. And finally, we can’t interview an author without asking for book recommendations! Any must-read suggestions for summer?
Adults:
- The Pervin Mistry series by Sujata Massey (detective mystery)
- The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi (historical fiction)
- The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandana (fantasy fiction)
- Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel and The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Divakaruni ((Indian mythology)
Kids:
- The Aru Shah series by Roshani Chokshi
- The Force of Fire series by Sayantani DasGupta
- Sona and the Golden Beasts by Rajani LaRocca
- Rea and the Blood of the Nectar by Payal Doshi (can I plug my book?!)
- Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year by Nina Hamza
- Unsettled by Reem Faruqi
- Saving Sunshine (A graphic novel) by Saadia Faruqi
Follow Payal at:
Instagram: @payaldoshiauthor
X: @payaldwrites
Facebook: Payal Doshi Author