About

I’m an Indian-born author and entrepreneur in Los Angeles. My middle name (pronounced AR-pana) is a Sanskrit word meaning she who is surrendered to God.

Since migrating to LA from Mumbai in 1999, I have edited numerous books and written four of my own. I also have two feature-length screenplays to my name.

My fifth book (forthcoming September 2026) is a comedy inspired by Hamlet. Like my previous works, it will be published by Consonant Books, the company I founded in 2013.

I hold MA’s in English (Pune, India) and Creative Writing (Keele, UK), and have also studied at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. In the 1990s I took Bible-based courses at University of the Nations campuses in India, the Philippines, and Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

My career includes working as a proofreader at Warner Bros., Burbank. I was also employed at two churches, two publishing companies, and at a credit union.

I’ve been a freelance editor since 1998. I enjoy coaching writers and specialize in developmental editing of novels and memoirs. Call me crazy, but I love a messy first draft!

On a more personal note, I’ve been a follower of Jesus Christ since the age of six. My greatest passions are prayer, worship, and exercising my spiritual gift of exhortation. I also enjoy dream interpretation.

One of my God-given abilities is helping people find solutions to everyday problems. I’ve prayed for hundreds over the years, often also giving a word of knowledge that motivated them to take a step in the right direction.

Being disabled in both hands, I daily experience that Christ’s grace is available and sufficient. Life has not been a bed of roses for me, but I consider it a sacred and precious gift and strive to make the world a better place in some small way every day.

My blog posts can be read here, and these are some of my guest posts and interviews:

For more, please visit Facebook and Amazon.