Sharda Sekaran

Sharda Sekaran has dedicated over twenty years to telling stories. Her human rights advocacy has played a role in transforming some of the most significant issues of our generation. Her work has influenced pop culture and entertainment and drawn the attention of major media outlets. Sharda’s writing has been published in Ebony, Colorlines, The Huffington Post, Filter, NoMass Appeal, ATTN:, Al Jazeera, and CNN. Her essay, “Anywhere but India,” was published in Brown Girl Magazine’s anthology UNTOLD. Sharda was twice awarded a fiction fellowship with Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). Her essay on dating while nerdy will appear in an upcoming anthology of Black American humor edited by Damon Young.

A former DJ and lifelong music adventurer, Sharda is seeking publication for her debut novel, BANK OF THE UNDERWORLD, the story of how a young man confronts his traumas by becoming a devotee of an obscure underground music label his father was a fan of in the 90s that blended heavy metal culture with a rich tapestry of multiethnic folklore and death mythology. The story honors the influence of people of color in metal music, subculture and fandom, and contemplates death, grief, and trauma as sources for inspiration.

Selected Publications:

• Stigmatizing Drug Use is Killing Us

• Can The Pandemic Usher in a New Age of Harm Reduction Awareness 

• Brown Girl Magazine Anthology 

• Five Action Steps for Communicating in a Bilingual World 

• How We Can All Take Responsibility to Avoid Calling the Police  

• Frantz Fanon’s Daughter to Michigan Prisons: Take ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ Off the Banned Book List