Author Talk: Meghana Karanjkar

Compelling and incisive, First Generation explores what it means to be an outsider—whether as an immigrant, a foster child, someone experiencing homelessness, or anyone searching for a place to call home. Each story examines the quiet resilience required to find acceptance in unfamiliar places: a new country, a new family, a new city, or even within oneself.

A first-generation immigrant learns to shed old ways while embracing new ones in the pursuit of belonging. A young man confronting a life-altering illness must redefine love as his romantic relationship changes in unexpected ways. Three young women stranded on a sweltering summer night in rural Pennsylvania are forced to rely on one another when an ordinary journey becomes a fight for survival.

Bound together by themes of identity, displacement, love, and resilience, First Generation is a poignant collection of stories about the choices that shape us, the sacrifices that transform us, and the enduring hope of finding where—and with whom—we belong.

“These are stories of becoming—of discovering that home is not always a place we inherit, but one we create.”

About Meghana Karanjkar
Meghana Karanjkar is a short story writer and nonfiction essayist whose work explores immigration, identity, belonging, family, and the complexities of navigating cultures. Her debut collection of short stories, First Generation, will be published in October 2026. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The Adelaide Journal, The Blue Mountain Review, In Parentheses, Prosetrics, and Appetite (Penguin India), among other publications. Her poetry has been published by Linen Press, UK.
A first-generation immigrant from India, Meghana draws on her experiences of living between cultures to explore questions of home, belonging, and what it means to build a life far from where one began. She lives in New Jersey with her family and a big yellow Lab.

Co-sponsored by the Indian Cultural Society