about me
Hello! I am Varsha, a part-time children’s writer from Bangalore, India. I have had some success with children’s writing alongside my full-time job in higher education. In 2025, I decided to do the scary and exciting thing of working part-time and focus the remaining time towards writing. I am unsure how long I would keep up with it before I run back to the comfort and security of a full-time job. I have always had many thoughts about Indian Kidlit. While Instagram (you can find me at varshaxvarghese) is a great way to share what I am reading now, it is not great to share curated book recommendations. This newsletter hopefully does that + serves as an anchor for me as I navigate all this unstructured time.
what I hope to share
thematic curation of Indian kidlit - books of girls fighting to play sports, picture books featuring disabilities, children’s fiction on conservation, etc
writing practices I try out as I settle into having more writing time in my life, how I approach a new novel project, working towards a good second draft, etc
i read a loot of Indian Kidlit, and I am very interested in qualitative landscape studies - so once in a while, you could expect slightly more academic pieces
recommendations and suggestions from kidlit writer friends
personal updates on book releases and author events
But every newsletter, regardless of the focus, will have some children’s book recommendations - so stick around even if you are simply here to purchase diverse books for a kid in your life (or yourself).
reach out if
you have ideas, comments or feedback for the newsletter
you are an early-stage writer working on a children's novel - and want feedback on your first draft
you are a dev sector non-profit looking for writers for kids' content as part of your outreach programming
