"Everyone has a novel in them, but in most cases, that's where it should stay,” said Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011),  a hugely influential journalist and public intellectual known for his quick mind and sardonic put-downs.

 

Mine didn't stay there. It's already halfway out.

 

Usually, a publishing company will not even consider an incomplete manuscript. So I'm incredibly proud and honored that Farrar, Straus, and Giroux - one of the biggest publishing companies in the United States - chose to work with me, a 22-year-old college student.  

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I collaborated with Katherine Jacobs, senior editor at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for Young Readers, on my novel about an Indian-American girl’s experiences with vitiligo, a condition involving skin pigment loss that is stigmatized in India, and how she copes through creative writing. While supervised by Joy Peskin and Simon Boughton, the imprint's editorial directors, I consistently met strict deadlines of submitting 25 pages every two weeks and exceeded their editorial expectations. By the end of my three-month collaboration, I had produced 140 rough pages, polished 50 revised pages, crafted a plot structure, and drafted a compelling plot pitch/synopsis.

 

And though my novel is still in progress to be published, it feels like I have more novels in me.