Shveta Thakrar (Star Daughter, The Dream Runners), Kritika H. Rao (The Surviving Sky), Roshani Chokshi (Aru Shah, The Star Touched Queen), and Ram V (The Many Deaths of Laila Starr) are helping to create a new genre. They use elements of their Hindu backgrounds to write fantasy books primarily aimed at a Western marketplace. I talked with them about the challenge of drawing on a diverse religion of beliefs and gods that many Western readers and publishers might be unfamiliar with. Our panel discussion also turned out to be an opportunity for the authors to bond over their favorite deities, the Hindu comics they grew up reading, and the questions they’ve faced about who gets to tell their stories.
