Amulya Malladi

"I am a character-driven writer, and I believe that once you define a character, they tell their story. Characters are defined not just by their personality but also by their relationships to other characters. So it’s no surprise that relationships are central to my stories. And relationships are not always smooth and easy – they have edges and help me know my characters and their edges better."

"I feel like a citizen of the world. I have now lived outside of India, where I grew up, longer than I lived in India. I have picked up traditions and even accents from India, the United States, and Denmark. I struggle with my cultural identity – where do I really come from? And even harder, where do I really belong? Everywhere or nowhere? Since many of my stories are about women trying to find their place in society, their cultural identities play a major role in driving their narrative."

"At this point in my life, I don’t worry about telling a literary story or the right story; I tell the story I want to tell, the story that makes me feel alive, the questions I want to answer."

"I think it’s an organic process. I don’t plot. I don’t plan. I start writing and characters and geography emerges. I find that in telling stories, the best laid plans go poof when your characters do what they want to do because you don’t control them—they become real and live their own lives. I certainly am influenced by the people I meet and the places I go to when I create my characters but it’s an intuitive thing, I just know who this person is or that person is and I know their name and I just know. And what I don’t know, he or she tells me."