Mani Rao is the author of nine poetry books and two books in translation from Sanskrit. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals including Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati, Wasafiri, Meanjin, Washington Square, exchanges, Fulcrum and Asia Literary Review and in anthologies including Penguin’s 60 Indian Poets, Zoland Poetry, W.W. Norton’s Language for a New Century and The Blood axe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Born in 1965, Rao was raised in India. She worked in the advertising and television field in India, Hong Kong and New Zealand for twenty years, including Star TV for nearly a decade, before turning to literary and scholarly interests. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Iowa International Writing Program in 2005 and 2009, and the 2006 University of Iowa International Program’s writer-in-residence. She has a BA in English from Stella Maris College, Chennai, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in poetry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Duke University.