Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction Category

When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.

For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them moksha, liberation from the cycles of birth and death.

The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world.

But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, planting on me something that is not quite a dying wish.

I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I'll pay an unbearable price for this concealment.

Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within.

It is an offering to lovers of whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose, and to anyone yearning to simply belong.

✨ Read my interview with Kobo on the nomination!

A lavender farm in summer. A fifteen-year-old girl who loves the colours of sunset. A handsome stranger who begs her to run away with him.

It could have been a love story. Except, it is not that kind of a story.

When a strange man approaches Rebecca Classion outside her farmhouse in the dead of the night and begs her to not go back inside, she does what any sensible fifteen-year-old would do. She runs straight back into the safety of home and slams the door shut behind her.

Only, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life.

From that day on, Rebecca Classion fades away. From the memories of all who once knew and loved her. From the perception of everyone she encounters.

Not a trace of her persists for more than a fleeting instant. Not her voice. Not a footprint.

All she yearns for is to exist again in the world of her loved ones.

But oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden.

You don’t need eyes, let alone a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul.

Sight is a privilege denied to everyone by law in the land of Parinara. Every child is blindfolded at birth. Even the dead are buried blindfolded. To see is an unpardonable crime, punishable by death.

Yet, fifteen-year-old Viola indulges in a momentary curiosity and violates the law, only to find that the gift of sight comes at an exorbitant price.

To look outward, she must first lose sight of what lies inward. But therein lie the secrets that even sightlessness cannot conceal.

When you lose someone you love, how far would you go in search of them?

And what if the only way you can find them is by first losing yourself along the way?

Devastated by grief at the loss of her beloved dog, Leo, Heidi ventures into the woods behind her home, hoping to find him there.

She meets strange and eccentric characters along the way, but no one seems inclined to give her a straight answer about Leo’s whereabouts.

Frustrated and confused, Heidi begins to wonder if there is more to these characters than meets the eye. The Oldest Witch who lives in a snow bubble of denial. The Omniscient Man who trivializes Heidi’s pain. The lonely woman, Gaia, who is consumed by anger. And many others.

As Heidi struggles to make sense of their cryptic responses, she must also navigate her own emotions and face up to the distinct possibility she has been refusing to consider all along. Perhaps Leo is truly gone forever and she may never find him.

Drifting from one dreamlike encounter to another, Heidi discovers that the journey through grief, from loss towards acceptance, is a meandering. It unfolds of its own accord, often seemingly without purpose or reason. But can she survive it without first getting hopelessly lost?

Welcome to The Dream Pedlar's emporium of delightful dreams and wondrous whimsies, of impossible illusions and fleeting fantasies!

Behold a captivating collection of 100 flash fiction tales where the mundane morphs into the magical, the everyday shape-shifts into the exceptional, and the inconceivable becomes the inevitable.

Where witches promise to reveal the secret of happiness and wise old men whisper wisdom and warnings in your ears. Where you summon an angel and the devil appears instead. 

Where billboards flash messages from the afterlife and Gods mess with the desires of your heart. Where woodland creatures host tea parties and pirates are on a recruitment spree. 

Where trees lead a secret rebellion and reindeer go on strike. Where the months of the year debate over how many days each of them truly deserves.

Perfect for lovers of fantasy and whimsy, for seekers of the paranormal and the uncanny, this collection of fantasy fiction stories invites you to a hundred different sojourns in wee worlds of whimsy and wonder.

Even the briefest of wanderings into these tiny tales of speculative fiction will leave the most lasting of impressions, the kind that lingers for a lifetime.

Because the magic you seek has also been yearning to reveal itself to you.

Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly.

In a land where gods have long mastered the art of ignoring the prayers of human beings, a new goddess arrives. She desires nothing more than to help those who call out in faith.

But every choice, no matter how noble, comes with its own consequences. Even the benevolent goddess will have to pay a steep price if she chooses to follow her heart’s desire.

All it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.

True to his name, the Mind Meddler messes with people’s minds. He plants a single innocuous thought in his victim’s mind, then steps back and watches as it slowly ensnares and destroys them.

The ghost-girl has the gift of pure sight. She sees nothing but the truth. The objective, unadulterated truth. Without judgement or deliberation. Thoughts do not trouble her.

The Mind Meddler has never met anybody like the ghost-girl in his entire existence. Her uncanny ability is a challenge he cannot resist …

This speculative fiction tale by Anitha Krishnan secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest for the 2nd Quarter (January—March) 2022.

Two things were annoying Mrs. D’Souza. One, the fact that she was dead. And second, the line of dead folks waiting to meet their Maker was insufferably long and impossibly docile.

Restless and teeming with questions, she decides to take matters in her own hands and sets out to find God. Not a big deal, really.

Except for one small thing. How do you seek someone when you don’t even know what they look like?

The worst is not what happens.
The worst is what every mother fears could happen.

Imagination collides with maternal fear in this bold collection of troubling, twisted tales from a fiction writer who isn’t afraid to plumb the often terrifying emotional depths of the motherhood experience.

A party across the street lures a trusting three-year-old into an adventure, but thrusts his mother into a nightmare.

A mirror offers the gift of more time, something every parent longs for, but what will it take in return?

A mother erases her seven-year-old’s painful memories to leave him with the impression of a perfect childhood. Only, it leads to imperfect consequences.

Teeming with the unthinkable, this collection of six never-before-seen short stories tugs at every mother’s helpless heartstrings, coaxes out her deepest and darkest fears for her children, and presents them in the guise of fantasy fiction so that her nightmares won’t come true.

The following stories are included in the collection, and each is available for sale independently too:
The Party across the Street
A Suitable Colour for a Ghost
Memory Games*
The Goldilocks Zone
Hide-and-Seek**
The Gift of Time

*Memory Games secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, July—September 2023 quarter.

**Hide-and-Seek secured an Honourable Mention in the Spring/Summer 2021 issue of Allegory Magazine, Volume 39/66.

Dreams for one, dreams for all,

some dreams to last all day,

some for when the night falls.

Written during my sojourns in Canada and Australia, Hello, Dreamer! is an eclectic collection of 100 short poems encompassing musings on the Universe and its mysteries, nature and human life, my secret longings and fears, love and heartbreak, the sun and the moon, the stars and the seas, light and shadow, and joy and nostalgia.

Read them all in one sitting.

Or read them one a day, savouring each like a tidbit.

There's much in here to spark joy and light up your soul.