Uma Krishnaswami

Process Talk: Sandra Nickel on The True Ugly Duckling — Uma Krishnaswami Hans Christian Andersen’s stories were part of my childhood writing life. It was a weirdly magical intersection that I’ve written about over the years. When I was invited to write text for N...

Process talk: Sandra Nickel on The True Ugly Duckling, her beautiful Hans Christian Andersen picture book biography.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

Guest Post: What if…?Julie Lawson on Bear on the Train — Uma Krishnaswami Julie Lawson’s Bear on the Train is a wordier pic ture book than we’re used to seeing now, yet how delicately drawn its relationships are: boy and bear, bear and landscape, landscape and train. T...

Guest Post: What If...? Julie Lawson on her picture book, Bear on the Train. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/julie-l...

Guest Post: Suma Subramaniam on the V. Malar Series — Uma Krishnaswami Writing the Book Uncle trilogy was a recursive process for me, as I had to go back and read the first book, pretending to be that new, naive reader demanded by revision. I sketched characters in sma...

Guest Post on Writing With a Broken Tusk: Suma Subramaniam on writing the second book in her V. Malar series
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

Process Talk: Monisha Bajaj on A Year of Kites — Uma Krishnaswami I used to be a clumsy kid, so I have to admit that I never took to kite-flying. It called for more dexterity and coordination than I was ever capable of, but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of...

Monisha Bajaj on her new picture book, A Year of Kites
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Process Talk: Andrée Poulin on Planting Sunshine — Uma Krishnaswami Children live in the same world as we do. It’s a world with violence, inequity, discrimination, hatred. It’s a world in which wars break out, drag on, reignite. If we pretend otherwise, imagining chil...

My conversation with Andrée Poulin on war, peace, art, sunflowers, young readers, truth-telling, and more.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

Guest Post: Rowena Rae on Why We Need Vaccines — Uma Krishnaswami I met Rowena Rae when our books were both shortlisted for the 2025 City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize. That unexpected recognition (for me anyway!) brought us together — it’s the kind of write...

Guest Post: Rowena Rae on Why We Need Vaccines
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

Guest Post: Megan Pomper on What Makes a Bird? — Uma Krishnaswami I met Megan Pomper when our books were both shortlisted for the City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize. Megan’s book, What Makes a Bird? follows a child asking that singular question. It follo...

Guest Post: Megan Pomper on What Makes a Bird?
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

A Trump Veto Leaves Republicans in Colorado Parched and Bewildered

Another instance of 47 sticking it to—huh? His own supporters? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/u...

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

Let the billions flow into business coffers while everyone coughs through pea-soup smog and dies early.
E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Dancing Ganesha, Hindu deity with an elephant head. Jacket image, The Broken Tusk by Uma Krishnaswami, art by Maniam Selven

My Book at 30: Ganesha Dances On With Reading Is Fundamental
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/my-book...

Always an hono(u)r, William Alexander.

After Machado Offers Her Nobel, Trump Says It Would Be an ‘Honor’ to Accept It

😩🤯🤮After Machado Offers Her Nobel, Trump Says It Would Be an ‘Honor’ to Accept It www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/w...

The Sill of the World: Where is the Writer in the Text? — Uma Krishnaswami As another year begins I find myself thinking of the passage of time, of generations, and of story. And because I too, have a fond relationship with an ancient Remington Rand typewriter that sits on...

Richard Wilbur's poem, "The Writer," Joe Sacco's graphic reporting, and memoir and story by Julian Brave NoiseCat www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/the-sil...

Trump Has Renamed the Kennedy Center, but a Satirist Owns the URL

There is some justice in the world and it’s delivered by satirists. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/u...

Landscape and Language in Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? — Uma Krishnaswami In Landmarks , Robert Macfarlane wrote about the land in ways that made me feel as if I could touch the moss, hear the water flow. His prose enchanted, prompting me to read out loud. But I have o...

Landcape and language in Robert Macfarlane's Is a River Alive?
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/landsca...

Guest Post: William Alexander on Sunward — Uma Krishnaswami When I taught at VCFA, I had the pleasure of serving on faculty with plenty of smart, informed, talented writers. Among them was William Alexander . Will is the author of Goblin Secrets (a Natio...

Guest post from William Alexander on his sci-fi novel, Sunward.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

A Half-visible Map: Reading Projects Itself into Writing — Uma Krishnaswami How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy to Fascism by Ece Temelkuran is rooted in the author’s experience in T urkey, but the pic ture it draws is of the rising neo-fascist right, ...

A Half-visible Map: Reading Projects Itself into Writing in How to Lose a Country by Ece Temelkuran
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/a-half-...

PW’s 2025 Person of the Year: Nihar Malaviya The Penguin Random House CEO has gone all in on protecting the First Amendment and the freedom to read. For his efforts and those of PRH, he is Publishers Weekly’s Person of the Year.

Thank you, Nihar Malaviya, PRH CEO and fellow immigrant from India, for taking a stance for the freedom to read and thank you, Publishers Weekly, for recognizing him for it: www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

You’re most welcome. Thank you for your books. I’m still mulling over How to Lose a Country and am only sorry I didn’t find it sooner.

Process Talk: Mitali Perkins on The Golden Necklace — Uma Krishnaswami Mitali Perkins has been my fellow traveler on the long road of writing books for young readers with the specific aim of crossing cultural and geographical boundaries. In 2017, her novel, You Bring t...

Here's my conversation with Mitali Perkins about her middle grade novel, The Golden Necklace:
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

The Opposite of More is Not Less: Together by Ece Temelkuran — Uma Krishnaswami Together by political thinker and poet Ece Temelkuran traces upon the imagination the contours of a better world, a fairer world, a world where the toxic power play of a few need not create unre...

I've been reading Together by Ece Temelkuran through the fiction writing lens that helps me create meaning while not losing my mind.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/the-opp...

“Everything is Getting More Farcical.” Listening to Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny — Uma Krishnaswami Headlines used to be about information, about what was going on in the world. I remember those times with nostalgia. Possibly the world was a clown show back then as well, and I just wasn’t paying att...

Reading/listening helps us make sense of the world.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/everyth...

Guest Post: Karen Leggett Abouraya Talks Art Process with Susan L. Roth — Uma Krishnaswami Karen Leggett Abouraya and Susan L. Roth have collaborated on picture books for years. Yes, collaborated, which isn’t something authors and illustrators are known to do in North American publishing...

Guest post on Writing With a Broken Tusk: Karen Leggett Abouraya and Susan L. Roth on Zamzam.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

Memory, place, family: my conversation with Ann Dávila Cardinal on her YA/adult crossover novel, The Storyteller’s Death
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

Trump Officials Accused of Bullying Tactics to Kill a Climate Measure

Not content to kill climate measures in the US, 47’s taking aim at the whole planet. Anyone surprised?

Trump Officials Accused of Bullying Tactics to Kill a Climate Measure www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/c...

NYC skyline above title, "Zohran Walks New York," with city scenes--taxi, food vendor, bus, people waving, Zohran smiling and waving, by author-illustrator Millie von Platen

Zohran Walks New York by Millie von Platen--a love song to NYC and a tribute to Mamdani's journey.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/zohran-...

Erroneously Informed, Unnecessarily Dead — Uma Krishnaswami On Freedom is Timothy Snyder’s ( On Tyranny ) meditation on the nature of people, especially Americans, and the meaning of freedom. Historian Snyder argues that freedom is a concept in need of rescui...

Reflections on Timothy Snyder's book, On Freedom.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/erroneo...

Why bother bargaining over Ukraine when there's a ballroom to build, the East Wing to demolish, and a universe of taste-free, fake-king AI videos to conquer?

Process Talk: Caroline Carlson on The Tinkerers — Uma Krishnaswami Stargazers Valley is an isolated village where Peter, the young protagonist of The Tinkerers , gazes at st ars, listens to stories, and tries not to step on star-eating newts. Peter lives an ordin...

Caroline Carlson chats with me about her middle grade fantasy with real-world implications, The Tinkerers.
www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

[checks calendar]