Alka Joshi

An accidental writer. That's me. Writing wasn't anything I ever intended to pursue as a career. Other people talked me into it. Like the Ad agency that hired me to write instead of making pretty pictures. Like my husband who understood I'd married a writer because I secretly wanted to be one. Like the writing instructors who cheered me on. I had no idea what to write about so I started with my mother's life in India and ended up re-inventing her story without all the cultural restrictions she had to live by. That debut novel is THE HENNA ARTIST. I was born in India and raised in the U.S. from the age of nine. I graduated from Stanford University and, at the urging of friends and family, earned an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of Arts. I've run an advertising and marketing agency for over 20 years. I live with my husband and two misbehaving pups on the northern California coast.