Mani Rao

Mani Rao is the author of eight poetry books including Ghostmasters (2010) and Echolocation (2003). Her poems and essays have appeared in journals including Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati, Almost Island, Wasafiri, Meanjin, Washington Square, eXchanges, Fulcrum, Asia Literary Review, West Coast Line, Iowa Review, Colorado Review, Interim, and in anthologies including Penguin’s 60 Indian Poets, Zoland Poetry, W.W. Norton’s Language for a New Century and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Born in 1965, Rao was raised in India. She worked in television and advertising in India, Hong Kong and New Zealand for twenty years, including at Star TV for nearly a decade, before turning to literary and scholarly interests full-time. 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 student of religious studies at Duke University. The author’s website is www.manirao.com.