Raushan (she/they)

Raushan is a queer muslim, immigrant, and mother living in the US South. Her work centers collaborations with communities at the margins in their autonomous journeys toward equity and social change. She finds solace and inspiration in lush forests, bodies of water, artivists, sips of warm turmeric chai, and communities and visions rooted in our collective liberation through somatic practices and radical love. 

Sylvia N.C. (she/her)

Sylvia NC is a bilingual poet, painter and ceramicist pursuing a doctorate degree in English. Her writing and ethnographic research explores transnational mobility and rhetorical practice in the Bengali diaspora. She is a New Yorker living in the rainforest, teaching trauma-informed narrative writing to university students.

Kulvinder Arora (she/her)

Kulvinder Arora is a writer, educator, and distiller of wandering thoughts. She promotes self-expression as the Director of Programming at Literary Legacies, a non-profit that helps students transcend barriers through the power of the pen. Editing an anthology of student poetry has taught her one thing: teenagers do have a lot to say.  As a Visiting Assistant Professor in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago and Macalester College, she inspired students to question everything they thought they knew about literature and films. Now based in Morgan Hill, California, she soaks the rays in the Bay Area's cultural scene and even treads the stage at El Teatro Campesino (break a leg!). A proud graduate of SOAR Storytelling Academy, she owes a debt of gratitude to her mentors and fellow writers for pushing her to spill her own hard truths.  When she's not molding young minds or wrestling with her memoir, you'll find her hanging out with the world's most Zen Husky, as they enjoy walking meditations. 

Meghna B (she/her)

Meghna B is a first-generation immigrant woman of Indian origin, multidisciplinary educator, feminist scholar, storyteller, and facilitator living in California. As a deeply sensitive soul, Meghna found sharing her true stories on stage and through writing to be restorative, cathartic, and liberating in building communities, unlearning patriarchy and colonialism, and navigating her healing journey around immigration, mental health, chronic illness, and gender violence. As a 2022 Seeding Creativity Artist Grant recipient, she created Gulabi Stories: A South Asian Healing Initiative, a multidisciplinary storytelling platform amplifying stories of healing shared by the larger South Asian diaspora. Being born and raised in Mumbai and having ancestral roots in Mangalore (South India), Meghna finds solace in her kaapi, dosa-chutney, cutting chai, and chaat. 

Connect with Meghna: Instagram (@desi_storyteller_megz) | Website (@gulabi_stories) 

Komal Kaur (she/her)

Komal Kaur Chohan is an MSW student and President of Umeed, a coalition of marginalized communities working in solidarity to dismantle systems of oppression and foster justice, collective care, and liberation. Born in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, and with a background as a former special education teacher and community-based caseworker specializing in trauma-induced behaviors, domestic violence, and mental health, Komal is dedicated to breaking down barriers and creating safe, inclusive spaces for healing. Grounded in her Sikh-Punjabi identity, she is committed to addressing systemic injustice and building community-driven initiatives where everyone has access to the resources and support they need. 

Connect with Komal: Instagram (@mskomalk) | Umeed

Ameera Khan (she/her)

Ameera Sultana Khan is a Bengali-American Muslim whose Islam is informed by personal experience, theological training in the completion of her Hifz, or memorization of the Quran, and progressive Muslim and interfaith perspectives. She is informed by Sunni, Sufi, anti-patriarchal, and liberation theology-oriented traditions within Shari'a, Quran, Hadith, and Islamic History. This includes properly interpreting dominant narratives around commonly cited Islamic excuses for homophobia and transphobia, such as the story of the people of Lot. She joined the Muslim Youth Leadership Council as a Youth activist from 2018-2021 to learn how empowered queer and transgender Muslims are reclaiming their narrative across the country. She has been featured as a guest to share her knowledge in various workshops, been invited on podcasts, and given talks on topics like reclaiming Queer Islamic History, Muslim Identity, and Shari'a Law. She is also an active member of the El-Tawhid Juma Circle (ETJC) Unity Mosque based out of Toronto, and co-founder of the Madison branch of ETJC. In her professional life, she works as a DevOps engineer in Minnesota.

Nandani Devi (them/dem):

Nandani Devi is a queer, neurodivergent, intersectional feminist, published writer, trauma survivor, West Indian witch, tarot reader, and artist. They are first generation (Guyanese) Indo Caribbean-New Yorker, on Canarsee and Munsee Lenape land. Their creative practices and publications are an effort towards personal and collective liberation, giving voice to their inner eco systems, ancestral wisdom and shared pain while combating erasure of their intersectional experience. Nandani’s spiritual practice is based in decolonized deity worship and learning the traditions of Caribbean spiritual diasporas such as herbalism, animism, Shakta Tantra and Santeria/Isese. They are dedicated to truth, love, reparations, restoration, expansive joy, mutual aid, community making and service. Together we heal. Together we thrive.

Connect with Devi: Instagram (@thewestindianwitch) | Website | Email

Sewa Fields (she/her)

Sewa Fields was born and raised in India and moved to the US as an adult. In her 20s and 30s, she encountered domestic violence and loss that eventually led to a beautiful story of redemption and restoration. Through her inspiring story, she has brought hope and healing to countless victims of abuse.  She has used her story to raise awareness for domestic abuse and help define healthy relationships for young adults. She is an Advocate, Speaker, and Author and has used her expertise to create greater change through the empowerment of men and women to end domestic abuse. Sewa has also authored the best-selling devotional: Overcomer: Defeating Anxiety and Abuse and Letters to the Broken. 

Sewa has a beautiful 13-year-old daughter Ellie who is the joy of her life. Her parents and siblings live in India and the UK. Sewa enjoys reading, hiking, a good biryani, cardamom chai, a lovely summer evening, hanging with her friends, journaling, documentaries, and a chill night cuddling with her daughter. 

Connect with Sewa: Instagram (@sewafields) | Website 

Dimple Dhabalia (she/her):

Dimple Dhabalia is a writer, podcaster, facilitator, and workplace mental health advocate with over twenty years of front-line and management experience in the US government. In 2021 Dimple founded Roots in the Clouds, a boutique consulting firm specializing in using the power of storytelling to heal organizational trauma and moral injury. Dimple is the best-selling author of Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self which was named a 2024 NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite and excerpted by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. In addition to her piece in Sanctuaries, Dimple’s work has been featured in Fast Company, CEO World Magazine, and the Federal News Network, and An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping.

Connect with Dimple: Instagram (@dimpstory) | Website | Podcast

PGS (she/her): 

PGS is an intersectional feminist and award-winning writer and storyteller. She is author of a book of poems around the notion of home, abandonment, immigration, violence, trauma, and healing that was lauded by Shabana Azmi as a ‘must-read.’ She is also a member of her county’s Domestic Violence Taskforce. She found her calling in creating a multidisciplinary storytelling and advocacy nonprofit platform, The Woman Inc., some years ago. It created a community of women and gender-affirming voices to ARISE (Advocacy, Rights, Initiatives for Community, Storytelling for Healing, Empowerment). Because of her work, she was chosen as the only person in the country to be a part of the USC Annenberg Grant and Fellowship for Domestic Violence Impact Writing and Community Storytelling from outside California. This led her to research and write a series on gender-based violence and intergenerational trauma, including children affected by violence. This also led her to collaborate with nonprofits to facilitate storytelling and poetry workshops for healing at the intersection of identity, race, gender, patriarchy, culture, health, imimigration, political, and personal. ‘The song that I came to sing/ Remains unsung to this day’ from Tagore’s poem resonates with her and makes her curious for new bends in her life that has been spread over three continents and three dozen homes.  

Rena Patel (she/her):

Rena Patel is a South Asian American writer, producer, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. Her work, which spans across the page, stage, and screen, focuses heavily on South Asian women upending generational cycles and forging their own paths, in both modern day and in mythology and folklore. She loves writing stories that blurs reality and is fascinated by perception, parallel narratives, and what remains unsaid. Her romantic comedy stage play, Pyar aur Coffee, placed as a finalist for the 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival and opened at The Long Beach Shakespeare Company in June 2024 to a sold out run. Her prose and poetry has been previously published in The Sunflower Station Press, The Heduan Review, and The Calendula Review. As of 2022, she is also the Executive Director of Imaginarium Theatre NY where she serves as a producer for various stage shows and readings. She is currently a law student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles studying entertainment law and on the creative team at Bootleg Universe/1984 Private Defense Contractors/Shankar Animation.  

Connect with Rena: Instagram (@renapatelwrites) | Website 

Mohini Gima (she/her):

Mohini Gima is a first generation American Indian, the eldest and only daughter of a professor and nurse. With 14 years of experience as a Speech Language Pathologist in healthcare & in education, coupled with her own personal healing journey, she now follows her dharma of Rani Rising, a community space dedicated to help South Asian women Reclaim Your Roots, Awaken Your Relationships, Nurture Your Wellbeing and Ignite Your Inner Fire. She facilitates transformational experiences, guiding people to let go of perfectionism, cultural judgment and expectations, silence and shame. Through this, we can feel a sense of less loneliness and deeper belonging. Through coaching, consulting, workshops, and retreats, she fosters self-trust, intimacy, and emotional expression. Mohini’s work embodies a holistic, wholeness-centered, and tantric approach to living a fulfilled life.

Connect with Mohini: Instagram (@iammohinigima) | Website | Podcast | Weekly Emails

Aisha Tahir

Elisabeth Swim

Tasnim Islam

Navdep Kaur

Sarah Michal Hamid

GVQ

Padmaja Surendranath