Born in Kalyan to Goan parents, award-winning poet Rochelle Potkar moved to Mumbai in 1998. She began writing at 27, after giving up her corporate job. Some of the common themes in her poems include relationships, feminism, sexuality, love, romance, motherhood and womanhood.
An alumna of Iowa’s International Writing Program (2015) and Charles Wallace Writer’s fellowship (2017), Rochelle is the author of The Arithmetic of Breasts and Other Stories, Four Degrees of Separation and Paper Asylum. Her poem ‘Skirt’ was made into a poetry film by Philippa Collie Cousins for the Visible Poetry Project.
Rochelle has read her poetry in India, Bali, Iowa, Stirling, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Hungary and the Gold Coast. She also conducts creative (flash fiction, poetry and haibun) workshops in colleges and libraries. Besides the written word, she has also debuted in a character role in the Tamil feature-length film, Taramani, directed by award-winning director Ram.
‘Biscooti Love’ is taken from Rochelle’s first book, Four Degrees of Separation (Paperwall Media & Publishing, 2016).
Writer, teacher, activist and potter Aditi Rao (in lead photo) has authored two poetry collections, and is the winner of several awards and fellowships. In 2013, she published a prose-poem called ‘Dear Mr Yadav, I Too Am an Indian Woman’ in The Feminist Wire as a response to Indian politician Lalu Prasad Yadav’s comments on the Delhi Slut Walk.
Her writing reflects the time she spent in India, Argentina, Mexico and the US, where she did her Bachelor’s in liberal arts from Soka University of America and MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, New York.
Aditi now spends her time between Delhi and Shimla, and teaches creative and academic writing. She frequently organises intensive courses and writing retreats across the country. The 34-year-old also runs a youth programme using the arts for social change. Passionate about pottery, Aditi exhibits and sells her stoneware ceramic work created at her home studio in Delhi.
Aditi’s poems dwell on the female experience – the griefs, wounds and exhilaration that women have been conditioned to suppress – thus allowing a catharsis to take place on the page. ‘Girltalk’ is part of her latest anthology of poems A Kind of Freedom Song, which has been hailed for its “astounding vulnerability”.
French-Indian poet and dance producer and curator Karthika Nair hails from Kerala. The daughter of an army officer, the 47-year-old spent her childhood travel