Annenberg Beach House Artist in Residence

Shubha Venugopal is the fourth and final emerging woman of color writer featured in tonight's program. 

What makes her stand out is she is a professor at CSUN, the mother of two (a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old), is mulling over the innards of her first novel, AND she has accumulated an impressive list of publishing credits and honors. I feel lucky Shubha has carved out time to participate in the Annenberg Community Beach House public program. Her presence indicates just how committed Shubha is to furthering her writing career. 

One of the biggest challenges to women writers in general is how we balance responsibilities in a way men have never really had to consider. Motherhood, the home, being a wife (or partner) are some of the traditional "pulls" we manage to balance in order to write. J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer wrote with babies on their laps or within reach. Alice Walker raised her daughter, while writing The Color Purple. The list goes on and on... It's tough on families when mom is a writer, because as much as we like to pretend society has evolved, women have arrived, and we can do it all, the truth for many is different. We're often breadwinners, child guides, the ones who clean our own homes, who pay our own bills, and we do all the heavy lifting--even if we have a partner or spouse. 

I have sat in my little pantry/sewing cubby/office, staring at all the Costco toilet paper stacked to the ceiling (wondering if it will shield me in case of an earthquake), writing, while hearing (smelling) the pull of dishes in the sink, getting up and down to check on dinner in the oven, and worrying about my sons. For those of us who feel (or finally come to the realization) writing is our life, we make it work. Often, anything dealing with self care suffers, including our writing, so it is admirable Shubha has built her writing resume balancing so many "callings" for her attention.

When we first met on the phone, Shubha struck me as soft-spoken, candid, and measured. In person, she presents as all that and more. Her former students rate Dr. Venugopal as one who cares about her students' success and is fair in all she does when it comes to their work. 

When it comes to her own work, Shubha is unassuming, almost downplaying her accomplishments, and my sense is many in her world have no idea there is an inner-voice, a much louder and more insistent voice, telling her to write the damn stories down. I can't wait for her to tackle the novel she's been considering, and I'm thrilled Shubha has joined tonight's program. My hope is it turns into a new writing community for her and for Chinyere, Janine, and Roxana. 

If we're fortunate (fingers crossed), Shubha will share a mythological Indian goddess story she's written with a family member as key to its movement. 

BIO

Shubha Venugopal holds an MFA in fiction and a PhD in English. She was a winner in The Master’s Review 2016 annual fiction competition, a winner in Fish Publishing’s 2017 flash fiction competition, was a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter fiction prize 2017, and was a finalist of AWP’s 2016 WC&C Scholarship Competition. She has been selected for AWP’s Writer-to-Writer mentorship program, for a Tin House mentorship program, and for various grants at CSUN, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared or will appear in: Nimrod International Journal Awards Issue, 2017, Fish Publishing Anthology 2017, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, The Masters Review Volume 5, BANG!: New Guard Review, Kartika Review, Potomac Review, Post Road Magazine, Storyglossia, Word Riot, Mslexia and in other journals. Her stories appeared in the anthology, A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection and in the 2009 Robert Olen Butler Short Fiction Prize anthology. She has placed in competitions given by Nimrod International Journal, Colorado Review, Fish Publishing, Kore Press, Glimmer Train, The Atlantic Monthly, and others, was a featured author in the New Short Fiction Series, LA, and was interviewed in Asia Pacific Arts journal. She teaches at the California State University Northridge. 

TODAY: 10/24, Reception at 6 pm; Program starts at 6:30 pm in the Marion Davies Guest House. RSVP via Eventbrite. Avoid traffic. Come early and picnic on the Beach House patio.