Born and brought up in the eastern coastal state of Orissa in India, Mona Dash comes from a family of artistically inclined professionals. Mona grew up in an environment defined by books and debates, as her mother is a poet and writer and their house was usually filled with writers discussing literature, art, music and anything ‘different.’ Mona’s sojourn into writing started with dabbling in poetry while in school and went on to produce a collection of poems Dawn Drops. An engineer and an MBA, she currently works in an international Telecom company, but spends every free waking moment writing and plotting stories. Most of Mona’s work explores themes of love, displacement and belonging. Relationships, subsequent betrayal, and a quest for something fulfilling also emerge as strong themes in her work. Mona currently lives in London with her husband and young son. She is also pursuing a MA in Creative Writing in the London Met University. She doesn’t believe that not having time is an excuse to not read and write; and hence is a stranger to television and reads/writes on trains, in cars, waiting in a queue, late in the night – like anyone who has been afflicted by the written word.