How Award-Winning Debut Author Sanjena Sathian Writes

The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

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Award-winning short story writer and debut novelist, Sanjena Sathian, talked to me about the true cost of the American dream, magical realism, and working with Mindy Kaling on the adaptation of Gold Diggers.

Sanjena is an Iowa Writers' Workshop grad who started her career as a journalist and reporter in Mumbai and San Francisco. She has had nonfiction bylines in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more.

Her debut novel is Gold Diggers, and is described as, "A magical realist coming-of-age story ... about Indian American identity, community ... and the underside of ambition."

Already a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and a Vox Bookclub Pick, #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng, said of the book, “Dizzyingly original, fiercely funny, deeply wise.”

Stay calm and write on ...

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If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please "Follow" us to automatically see new interviews. In this file Sanjena Sathian and I discussed:

• Skewering myths of the "model minority"
• The literary legacies of Indian translators and magical realism
• How Mindy Kaling is approaching the TV adaptation of her book
• The writing life, an antidote to narcissism, and the definition of "vomit-drafter"

Show Notes:

• Sanjena.com
• Gold Diggers: A Novel by Sanjena Sathian [Amazon]
• Mindy Kaling’s Kaling International To Adapt Sanjena Sathian’s Novel ‘Gold Diggers’ For TV
• Sanjena Sathian Twitter
• Kelton Reid on Twitter

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