Alka and Sarah will talk about rewriting their mothers’ stories, how they came to write their debut novels later in life, and the upsides of publishing during a pandemic

Born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, Alka has lived in the U.S. since the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and and MFA from California College of Arts in San Francisco. Her debut novel,The Henna Artist, became a NYT Bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub Pick in 2020. The sequel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, premieres in July 2021, and she’s at work on the third book of the trilogy. An episodic TV series of The Henna Artist starring Freida Pinto is in development by Miramax TV.

Sarah McCraw Crow is the author of the debut novel The Wrong Kind of Woman (MIRA Books/HarperCollins). Publishers Weekly called it “an entrancing debut,” and Bookreporter’s review noted: "It’s a strong, strident message delivered in a valentine of a book ...with enough gentle grit and determination to keep you thinking about Virginia and the Gang of Four long after the last page is read.” She is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives on an old farm in Canterbury, NH.