Meet Our Amazing Presenters
Ajit Narayan
Ajit Narayan is a professional cartoonist who has been drawing for reputed publishing houses for over 14 years. As a cartoonist consultant for Scholastic India, he has been conducting cartoon workshops in schools, within and outside Delhi since the year 2000. He is the author of the book Cartooning with Ajit Narayan.
Aarti Sonthalia
Arti Sonthalia is a Hyderabad based children’s author. She started her journey with “Chicken Soup For the Soul” books, and continued to the children’s genre. Her debut children’s book, Big Bully And M-me was nominated for the Crystal Kite Asia award. Her other books, Hungry to Read has inspired even the reluctant readers to read. Her book Best Friends Forever has won the FICCI year of the book award jan’20 and her latest book Hungry To Play is loved by all.
Kia Carrington-Russel
Raised in the Darling Downs Region in Queensland, Australia, Kia Carrington-Russell, began writing as an angsty teenager, finding a passion for exploring creative realities and world building at fifteen. After graduating high school she decided to pursue a career in freelance journalism, and quickly amended that dream with something that made her heart beat faster and her mind race–fiction. With fresh eyes she went over her first manuscript, “Possession of my Soul” and began her publishing journey in 2014. With a recognizable style of kick ass heroines, fast-paced action, and romance that dances from light to dark, she’s been pronounced “the new up and coming author to look out for” and her writing style as “hauntingly beautiful.”
Gear Up for a series of SCINTILLATING Sessions at
The Neerja Modi School Literature Festival
Amandeep Sanshu
Amandeep Sandhu is the author of two novels, Roll of Honour and Sepia Leaves. He was born in Rourkela, he went to read English Literature at the University of Hyderabad and works as a technical writer. Roll of Honour is a story of the split loyalties of a Sikh boy in a boarding school in Punjab during the Khalistan movement and is based on the events of the year 1984: Operation Bluestar, Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination, the anti-Sikh pogrom. In their essence, this novel and Sepia Leaves are deeply autobiographical.
Shabnam Minwalla
Shabnam Minwalla has worked as a journalist with the Times of India. Presently, she writes food columns, book reviews and features for newspapers and magazines. Her first book, The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street, was critically acclaimed and won the Rivokids Parents’ and Kids’ Choice Awards. She is also the author of The Strange Haunting of Model High School, The Shy Supergirl and Lucky Girl.
Deepa Agarwal
Author, poet and translator, Deepa Agarwal has written about fifty books in English and Hindi, mostly for children. She has received many prestigious awards including N.C.E.R.T. National Award For Children’s Literature. Her historical adventure novel, Caravan to Tibet, was selected for the IBBY (International Board On Books For Young People) Honour List 2008 from India and like some of her earlier titles, was listed in the White Raven Catalogue of the International Youth Library, Munich. Her work has appeared in Japanese, Chinese and Korean as well as sixteen Indian languages.