An Interview with Meghana Karanjkar

Meghana Karanjkar is a short story writer as well as a non-fiction essayist. She has recently published her first book, First Generation, through Atmosphere Press. A few of her stories and essays have been published in The Adelaide Journal, The Blue Mountain Review, In Parentheses, and Prosetrics, and poetry in Linen Press, UK.

Meghana is a BIPOC first generation immigrant and her writing is informed by this experience. She lives in New Jersey with her family and a yellow Lab.

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Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

It did take a while as I started with the title “Falling Leaves” since I love nature so much and each story was like a leaf that was falling on earth. My mom loved it! However, a writing and publishing expert told me it felt like a nature book or agriculture, which is definitely not what it is. The theme of these stories is “outsider” and since I am a first generation immigrant, this felt like a more appropriate title.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

I was working with my designer and we went back and forth a few times, but then in the end he came up with just the perfect cover—I loved it and my close family and friends did as well. I was ecstatic. It truly depicted the story of Simran in the first story, “On the Road,” when she wants to return home and what happens at the airport.

When I held my book, I felt I was meeting my child for the first time, except this one took eight long years. But the wait was sweet and the meeting even sweeter. I carried the book along with me everywhere I went for a few days; it was attached to my body. It sounds ridiculous now. My husband even told me that it’s time to let the world savor it now!

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I used to write a lot in school and college and was really good at it. My English language teacher used to be pleased with my work. Then migrating to a new country and its countless challenges—getting jobs and having kids and growing roots in a new place overtook the writing person in me. It was buried and then it surfaced, out of the blue in 2018, just before the pandemic. I think, in a way, writing helped me survive the pandemic. Truly.

I think that the “outsider” story was buried deep somewhere and when the time was ripe it burst forth. I have felt like an outsider for a large portion, living in America, and these stories are about “other,” “not mainstream,” and underrepresented characters, which have always attracted me. So, I would say living a life as an outsider made a huge impact on me and thus, I could write this book.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I have worked in marketing and human resources and now in executive and career coaching. I have served corporate America for twenty-three years before I cut those ties. At that time, my husband and I were new to the country and our family was very young. We needed the income and so I took up and did very well in these corporate jobs.

My readers wouldn’t know that I worked for a jeans manufacturing company called Pepe Jeans in Bombay, India. This was my very first job working in advertising and public relations. I had to visit the pubs in Mumbai to advertise the product and if anyone brought the jeans and kept the receipt they would get a free beer. It was crazy! But I could do the rounds of the hippest clubs in Bombay in my twenties, and get paid for it. A cool deal, I would say.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

To actually see my own words, which I have created and would not be in this world if I had not done it, in print in a book feels surreal. Like, how did that happen? It feels like a dream some days and I have to pinch myself that I actually did this.

Revising and editing my work, getting feedback from my beta readers, and getting it to the best shape possible have been very rewarding.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

This book is not about the rich and the famous. Or the sensational life of celebrities. It is about people who live on the margins of society as well as relationships and what happens to them. I am shining a light, hopefully a bright one, on marginalized people and that they have similar dreams and ambitions and hopes for themselves and their families.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I am shifting now to non-fiction and currently working on a memoir and a book of essays or a memoir-in-essays. I am very busy with the marketing and launch activities of my book that just got published last week but doing the writing as much as I can.

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Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.