Veera Hiranandini

Children's Fiction, Fiction, Social Issues, Writers on Writing

Jan 24: Award Winning Author Veera Hiranandani with Amil & The After

January 24, 2024

Companion novel to Newbery Honor winning The Night Diary

Following the phenomenal success of The Night Diary, Veera Hiranandani returns to Conversations Live to discuss the much anticipated sequel, Amil and The After.

We discuss how Veera’s upbringing influences the kind of stories and subjects she chooses, and the multidimensional characters she writes about. She shares how she incorporates social issues like the partition of India, refugee life, loss of a parent, feelings of not belonging and seeking connection, relationships, and love into her storytelling. And we learn how she approaches the writing of such difficult topics to keep them accessible and entertaining for young readers. (8 – 12 years old)

Amil and the After with author Veera Hiranandani

About Veera Hiranandani

Veera Hiranandani is the award-winning author of several books for young people. Her most recent middle-grade novel, How to Find What You’re Not Looking For, received the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award, the 2022 Jane Addams Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2022 National Jewish Book Award. It was also named a Best Children’s Book of the Year by Amazon, Kirkus Reviews, Bank Street College, and Brightly. Veera’s Newbery Honor winning, The Night Diary, also received the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award, the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature, and several other honors and state reading list awards. The Night Diary was chosen as a 2018 Best Children’s Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Amazon, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews.

APR 02: Jamey Bradbury’s The Wild Inside, Veera Hiranandani’s The Night Diary, &

March 22, 2018

Jamey Bradbury, winner of the Estelle Campbell Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, debuts her electrifying novel set in the Alaskan wilderness. The Wild Inside is a fusion of psychological horror and coming-of-age tale, based in the world of dog-sled racing. John Irving praises it as an ” … unusual love story and a creepy horror novel … think of the Brontë sisters and Stephen King.”

Based in Anchorage, AK, Jamey’s work has appeared in Black Warrior Review (winner of the annual fiction contest), Sou’wester, and Zone 3. The Wild Inside is her first novel.

Next, Veera Hiranandani calls upon her father and his family’s journey for inspiration in The Night Diary. The partition of India in 1947 spawned vicious xenophobia and caused the upheaval of more than 14 million lives overnight in what is known to be the single largest human migration in history.

Veera is a former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she now teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute.

And we’ll also be joined by Matt Killeen to discuss Orphan Monster Spy, a tale of a blonde, blue-eyed Jewish girl in 1939 Germany, whose act of resistance is about to change the world.

Hailing from Vicki’s home town of Birmingham, England, Matt attempted to make a living as an advertising copywriter and music and sports journalist, and now writes for the world’s best loved toy company.

APR 02: Jamey Bradbury’s The Wild Inside, Veera Hiranandani’s The Night Diary, &

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