Arundhathi Subramaniam

ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM is the award-winning author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including the recent poetry volume, Love Without a Story, and a book of essays on contemporary women on sacred journeys, Women Who Wear Only Themselves. Her other work includes the acclaimed sacred poetry anthology, Eating God and the bestselling biography of a mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. A well-known prose writer on Indian spirituality, she has been a long-standing arts critic, anthologist, performing arts curator and poetry editor.

She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women's Award for Literature, the International Piero Bigongiari Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga award, the Charles Wallace, Visiting Arts and Homi Bhabha Fellowships, among others. She has written extensively on culture and spirituality, and has worked over the years as poetry editor, cultural curator and critic.

Anand Thakore

Born in Mumbai in 1971, Anand Thakore grew up in India and in the United Kingdom. He has spent most of his life in Mumbai. His published collections of poetry include Waking In December (2001), Elephant Bathing (2012), Mughal Sequence (2012), Selected Poems (2017) and Seven Deaths and Four Scrolls (2017). A Hindustani classical vocalist by training, he has devoted much of his life to the study, performance, composition and teaching of Hindustani vocal music. He received musical instruction for many years from Ustad Aslam Khan, Pandit Baban Haldankar and Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande.

Deepanker Khiwani

Born in New Delhi in 1971, Deepankar Khiwani lived in Paris for a long time before returning to India. He read Economics at Bombay University and earned postgraduate degrees in accounting and business management. He worked for a consulting and technology company. Khiwani's debut collection of poems, Entr'acte, was published in 2006 by Harbour Line. A master of formal, metred verses, Khiwani explored themes of detachment, masquerade, and ambivalence in these poems. His poems were included in many anthologies including 60 Indian Poets (Penguin, ed. Jeet Thayil), The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets.