is an actress, director, and writer of Indian origin mostly active in Hindi cinema. Her major contribution has been in the area of art cinema, winning critical acclaim for her sensitive and ‘close to life’ characters that emphasized the changing roles of women in India.

Vikram Chandra is a prominent author. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1995), won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book) and the David Higham Prize for Fiction. Love and Longing in Bombay (1997), his second book, won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book). He is currently teaching Creative Writing at the University of California. His most recent novel is Sacred Games (2006), set in present day Mumbai is now a Netflix original

Anurag Kashyap is an Indian Film director, writer, producer, editor and actor known for his work in Hindi Cinema and has several accolades including a National Film Award and 4 Filmfare Awards. For his contribution to the films, the Government of France awarded him with Ordre des Arts et et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2013).

Rekha Rodwittiya is India's leading contemporary feminist artists. She completed her graduation from The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda in 1981. She then received the Inlaks scholarship for her M.A. in Painting from Royal College of Art, London in 1984. In 1988-89 she was invited as guest artist to the Konsthogskolan, Stockholm and was also invited to deliver series of lectures on Indian Art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Grenoble and Castello de Rivoli, Torino in 1991.

Priyanka Mathew is the Principal Partner at Sunderlande, an art advisory that focuses on South Asian Art. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Priyanka entered the finance field as an analyst at Lehman Brothers and then at Goldman Sachs. She left the investment banking to join the Indian art world in 2005 as the director of Aicon Gallery, a leading gallery showcasing modern South Asian Art. She joined Sotheby’s in 2010 and was the Senior International Specialist for the field and i

Dipti Mathur is a collector of modern and contemporary South Asian art. Her ongoing interests lie in working with institutions in the US to promote a broader cross-cultural understanding of contemporary Indian art. She has served on the Board of Trustees and Collection Committees of several museums, and Chairs the South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley, and the Arts Council of the South Asia Institute at Harvard University. She is a founding member of the Asian Contemporary Art Consortium, SF.

Varun Grover is a screen-writer (Sacred Games, Masaan), lyricist (Gangs of Wasseypur, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Ankhon Dekhi, Fan, Udta Punjab), stand-up comedian, and children's fiction writer (graphic-novel Biksu) based in Mumbai. His work is derived from contemporary Indian conflicts, idiosyncrasies, and realities. He loves writing poems and stories for children.

Yasmin is a contemporary artist from Bangladesh. She was awarded the residency program by Art Forum.

Vikramaditya Motwane is a writer, director and producer, though unfortunately not always in that order. His directorial debut Udaan was selected to compete in the 'Un Certain Regard’ category at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. He’s since directed Lootera, Trapped and Bhavesh Joshi Superhero. He is the showrunner on Sacred Games, Netflix’s first Indian original.

Tanuja Wakefield’s poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her first book, Undersong, was published in 2019 by FutureCycle Press. She has an MFA in Poetry from San Francisco State University, an MA in English from Tulane University, and a BA in English from Wellesley College. She lives with her family in Belmont, California where she served as poet laureate from 2015 to 2018.

Raghu Karnad is an author and journalist, and a recipient of a 2019 Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University. He is chief of bureau at theWire.in, an independent news website he helped to found in 2015. He is also the author of Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War (2015), which received the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2016. His reporting and essays have been published in the Guardian, Granta, n+1, the New York Times and online at the New Yorker and the Atlantic.

Nayomi Munaweera’s debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, was long-listed for the Man Asia Literary Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Prize. It was short-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Northern California Book Prize. It won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for the Asian Region. Munaweera’s second novel, What Lies Between Us was hailed as one of the most exciting literary releases of 2016. It won the Sri Lankan National Book Award and the Godage Award.

Shanthi Sekaran is a writer and educator from Berkeley, California. Her recent novel, Lucky Boy (Putnam/Penguin), was named an IndieNext Great Read, and an NPR Best Book of 2017. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Salon.com, LA Review of Books and Huffington Post. She teaches creative writing and literature at Mills College in Oakland, CA.

Mitali Perkins has written twelve books for young readers. She has been nominated for a National Book Award, honored as a "Most Engaging Author" by independent booksellers, and selected as a "Literary Light for Children" by the Associates of the Boston Public Library. In 2018, she was on the National Book Award committee. Mitali was born in Kolkata, India before immigrating to the United States. She has lived in Bangladesh, India, England, Thailand, Mexico, Cameroon, and Ghana.

Naheed Hasnat Senzai is the author of award winning SHOOTING KABUL, chosen by the Asian Pacific Librarians Association as their Young Adult Literature winner and an NPR’s Backseat Book Club pick, along with Edgar Award nominee SAVING KABUL CORNER, YALSA pick TICKET TO INDIA and acclaimed ESCAPE FROM ALEPPO. She spent her childhood in San Francisco, Jubail, Saudi Arabia and attended high school in London, England.

Minal Hajratwala wrote Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents (winner of four nonfiction awards), Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment (poetry), and the Moon Fiji travel guidebook (2019); edited Out! Stories from the New Queer India (anthology); co-founded The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective; and created Write Like a Unicorn to help writers tap their magic.

Siddharth Dube writes and works on social justice issues. His most recent book is An Indefinite Sentence: A Personal History of Outlawed Love and Sex, which the New York Times called "heartstopping...brings to mind the achievements of David France in 'How to Survive a Plague.'” In 2020, Viking Penguin (India) will publish In the Land of Poverty: A Century in the Life of a Family, a Village, and a Nation. Siddharth is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York City.

Jonathan Curiel is a San Francisco journalist and author who has taught as a Fulbright Scholar at Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan.