The River Connects Us: Sangamithra Iyer, Vijaya Nagarajan and Shruti Swamy in conversation

​The work of the featured writers holds a keen interest in the interwoven lives of plants, humans, and animals, an attention to the sacred, and explorations of ancestral knowledge. They will speak about the complexities of writing memoir and the shared concerns of their work. An intimate, joyful conversation between South Asian women writers not to be missed. Free and open to the public, RSVP required.

​This program is made possible by generous funding from the San Francisco Arts Commission

​More about the Panelists:

​Sangamithra Iyer is an environmental planner, engineer, and the author of Governing Bodies: A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed. She holds a B.E. in Civil Engineering from The Cooper Union, an M.S. in Geotechnical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College. She is the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Café Royal Foundation Literature Grant and the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library. She is the founder of the Literary Animal Project, for which she was awarded a Culture and Animals Foundation Grant. She lives in Queens, New York and works on nature-based stormwater planning.

​Vijaya Nagarajan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco.  She holds a Ph.D. in South Asian Language and Literature, a MA in South Asian Civilization, and a B.S. in Political Economy of Natural Resources, all from UC Berkeley. She teaches courses on Hinduism, Commons: Land, Water, and Air, Voice, Memory, and Landscape, Religion and Nonviolence, among others. Her book, Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual and Ecology in India— An Exploration of the Kolam (Oxford University Press) delves into gender, art, ritual, climate, and ethics. She has been awarded fellowships from the Women’s Studies in Religion Fellowship at Harvard University, the Fulbright, American Institute of Indian Studies, the NEH Chair and the Davies Chair at University of San Francisco and writing residencies at the Mesa Refuge and the Djerassi.  She has been a frequent writer on dailydosedeal.com, a feminist climate blog on Hinduism and Climate in 2020 and been published in the Brick Literary Journal (Toronto), Whole Earth Review, Marg (Mumbai), publications, among others. Born along the Kaveri River, raised in New Delhi along the Yamuna River and Washington D.C along the Potomac River, Vijaya has been at the crossroads of many confluences of rivers, villages, migrations, and faiths. 

​Shruti Swamy is the author of A House Is a Body: Stories, and The Archer. Her novel Margret & Vishnu is forthcoming from Algonquin Books in 2027.She teaches writing with the collective The Dream Side.

​​​IMPORTANT NOTE:

​​​Health & Safety: To be inclusive of our immunocompromised and caregiver community members, all who join us are expected to have had the most recent COVID vaccine series and/or wear a mask throughout their time in our space.

​​​Accessibility: Please let us know if you have any accessibility needs we can be aware of to help you feel comfortable and welcome in our space. We are holding this event in our ground floor space without elevation to the entrance and have a gender-neutral ADA bathroom.

​​​Getting Here & Parking: We're a few short blocks from 16th Street BART. Public transportation is encouraged.