BACK TO OUR TEAM | SHASTRI AKELLA • 1:1 PROSE INSTRUCTOR
Shastri Akella
Shastri’s debut novel, The Sea Elephants, published in the US by Macmillan and in India by Penguin, was named a most anticipated debut by Good Morning America, Poets & Writers, and Electric Literature, among others. It is a queer coming-of-age novel set in 199os India (read a review here). His writing is or will be in Best American Short Fiction, Fairy Tale Review, Guernica, World Literature Review, and Masters Review, among others. He is the winner of the 2024 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, the 2023 Best of MicroFiction Contest, and the 2022 Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Contest. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD. in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a professor of Creative Writing at Michigan State University.
Pronouns • he/him.
Select work by Shastri available online
Foster Homeland, Guernica
Husband, Lover, He, The Masters Review
The Ghost that Shaped the Skin, Solstice
The Magic Bangle, Fairy Tale Review
The Sea Elephants: An Excerpt, Scroll.In