The Short Bio: Anuja Varghese (www.anujavarghese.com) is a Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, Humber Literary Review, Plenitude Magazine, and others. Her debut collection of genre-blending short stories titled CHRYSALIS is out March 2023 with House of Anansi Press. She is @anuja_v on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
The Long Bio:
Anuja Varghese is a queer, South Asian writer based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Plenitude Magazine, The Humber Literary Review, Corvid Queen: A Journal of Feminist Folklore & Fairy Tales, The Quarantine Review, Hamilton Review of Books, and others. Her work can also be found in the fiction anthologies Best Women's Erotica Volume 6 (Cleis Press, 2020), When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead (Haunt Publishing, 2022) and Queer Little Nightmares (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). She was longlisted for the PRISM International 2016 Short Fiction Contest, shortlisted for the Pigeon Pages 2019 Fiction Contest and took third prize in the 2019 Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition. In the 2022 Short Works Prize Competition presented by Hamilton Public Library and Hamilton Arts & Letters Magazine, Anuja won the Alvin A. Lee Award for Creative Nonfiction and also picked up an Honourable Mention in the fiction category. She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Award, and she is the recipient of a 2023 Hamilton Arts Award in the Creator Category.
Anuja holds a degree in English Literature from McGill University and a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Toronto. She serves as the Fiction Editor for The Ex-Puritan and as a board member for gritLIT. She is also the host of Hamilton's monthly literary reading series, Lit Live. In addition to her creative writing practice, Anuja is an experienced editor, workshop facilitator, and arts consultant, as well as a professional grant writer.
Anuja's debut short story collection titled CHRYSALIS was released in spring 2023 with House of Anansi Press. It has received attention from CBC Books, Xtra Magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Tor.com, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Dayne Ogilvie Prize presented by the Writers Trust of Canada. Visit anujavarghese.com for all the latest updates on Anuja's writing and events!
