Saying Gay In Our Household by Padma Venkatraman

June 02

“Mom, what’s a gay person?” When my child asked me this question, some years ago, when she was about eight, my first response was to give her examples of gay couples who are our friends.  “You know, like ___ and ___, or ___ and ___,” I said.  She knitted her brows for a while, and then […]

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Flights of Fancy in Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman

October 01

Born Behind Bars is my 5th novel. So when, on a recent school visit, a young reader piped up, “Why do you have a parrot character?” I really ought not to have been caught unawares. By now, nearly 15 years after my debut novel, Climbing The Stairs was released, you’d have thought I’d be anticipating […]

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On Being American: An Author’s Thoughts On The White House’s Attempt to Curb “Un-American” Conversations by Padma Venkatraman

October 08

This September, a memo and an executive order were sent by the president, ordering the heads of all executive departments and agencies to “cease and desist” from engaging in “any training” related to critical race theory or white privilege, and commanding federal agencies to stop “divisive un-American propaganda training sessions.” As I and others such […]

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Traveling the World Without a Ticket: Using Global Narratives to Learn About Other Cultures Without Othering Them by PADMA VENKATRAMAN

February 01

As the world grows more “global” it becomes increasingly important to expose young people to cultures other than their own. No matter what a student’s cultural background might be, an increased awareness of other cultures ought to promote dialogue, discussion and deeper mutual understanding. The more we learn to speak and to listen in mutually respectful ways, […]

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Classics, Colonization and a Call for Change by Padma Venkatraman

May 22

Last year, I gave in to horribly un-American behavior. Confident that my citizenship would not be revoked if indulged in censorship, I picked up a thick sharpie and blackened out offensive words in A Child’s Garden of Verse on my daughter’s shelf. Other “classics” just plain aren’t on her shelf. I’m confident her childhood can […]

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Sailing Oceans of Story by Padma Venkatraman

June 22

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who loved words. She traveled through the pages of books to places she’d never seen, and although none of the heroes or heroines she met looked anything like her, and even though many of those heroes or heroines were narrow-minded enough she probably wouldn’t have wanted […]

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