Short Bio
Sheba Karim is the author of the YA novels Skunk Girl, That Thing We Call a Heart, which made several Best Book lists including Bank Street and Kirkus, Mariam Sharma Hits the Road, a NPR Best Book of the Year, and The Marvelous Mirza Girls, winner of the South Asia Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology Alchemy: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Short Stories 2 (Tranquebar Press, 2012). Her fiction and essays have been featured or are forthcoming in 580 Split, Asia Literary Review, India Today, Literary Hub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Off Assignment, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, South Asian Review, The Rumpus, Time Out Delhi and various anthologies in the United States and India. Her script, Blighted, was a finalist at the 2022 Austin Film Festival, and is being filmed Fall 2024. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University.
Long Bio
Sheba Karim is the author of the YA novels Skunk Girl, That Thing We Call a Heart, Mariam Sharma Hits the Road, and The Marvelous Mirza Girls. Her fiction and essays have been featured or are forthcoming in 580 Split, Asia Literary Review, India Today, Literary Hub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Off Assignment, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, South Asian Review, The Rumpus, Time Out Delhi and various anthologies in the United States and India.
Mariam Sharma Hits the Road, which follows the misadventures of three South Asian-American best friends as they embark upon a road trip through the American South, was named a NPR Best Book of 2018 and a Bank Street Best Book of the Year. That Thing We Call a Heart, in which a young woman’s explorations of loyalty and love is informed by the evocative metaphors of Urdu poetry and the history of Partition, was named a Best Contemporary Teen Read of 2017 and a Best Teen Book of 2017 with a Touch of Humor by Kirkus Reviews, an Amelia Bloomer Best Feminist Book for Young Readers by the American Library Association and a Bank Street Best Book of the Year.
Her fourth book, The Marvelous Mirza Girls, winner of the South Asia Book Award and a finalist for the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, tells the story of Noreen, a Pakistani American teen who embarks on life-changing adventure to New Delhi. She is also the editor of the anthology Alchemy: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Short Stories 2 (Tranquebar Press, 2012).
Her short script, Blighted, was a finalist at the 2022 Austin Film Festival. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook, Ledig House, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and The Millay Colony for the Arts. She is represented by Ayesha Pande Literary.
Sheba was raised in the land of Rip Van Winkle, spent a long time living in New York City, a shorter time living in New Delhi and now lives in Nashville, TN, where she is a Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University.