Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is a Pushcart Prize nominated Indian-American poet, writer, actor, and filmmaker. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Life and Legends and Translation Editor of IHRAF Literary in New York. She has published four books of poetry and her works have appeared in notable journals like World Literature Today, Columbia Journal, California Quarterly, Indian Literature, Silk Routes Project (The University of Iowa), Life in Quarantine (Stanford University), etc. Her full-length poetry collection, Bare Soul was awarded the 2017 “Naji Naaman Literary Prize for Creativity.” Her awards and honors include the “Bihar Rajbhasha Award,” given by the government of Bihar, India, “Bihar Shri,” and the “Rajiv Gandhi Global Excellence Award.” She was also nominated for the “Honor of Yeast Litteraire” by Levure Litterarie magazine in Paris, France, in 2015.
Kalpna Singh-Chitnis' poems from her award-winning book "Bare Soul" and her poetry film "River of Songs," written and directed by her, will travel to the Moon on two separate NASA missions in 2022 and 2023. Her poems included in the "Nova collection" of the Lunar Codex Time Capsule will launch in 2022 with SpaceX's "Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander mission to Oceanus Procellarum" and her short film "River of Songs" included in the "Polaris Collection" of the Lunar Codex Time Capsule, will travel with SpaceX "Astrobotic Griffin lander, NASA VIPER rover" mission to the Lunar South Pole in summer 2023.
Kalpna’s poetry has received praise from eminent writers, such as Nobel Prize in Literature nominee Dr. Wazir Agha, Vaptsarov Award, and Ordre des Arts et des Lettres recipient Amrita Pritam, and poet and Academy Award winning lyricist, and filmmaker Gulzar. She has read her works at Sahitya Akademi, India’s highest academy of letters, Poets & Writers, AWP Conferences, and other venues internationally. Her works have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, German, Albanian, Czech, Arabic, Nepali, Urdu, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, and published in anthologies worldwide. The most recent among them are 100 Great Indian Poems (Bloomsbury, India), Unseen (Skylark Publications, UK), Collateral Damage, Carrying the Branch Poets in Search of Peace (Glass Lyre Press, USA), Paws Healing the Earth, Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic and Sunflowers: Ukrainian Poetry on War, Resistance Hope and Peace (River Paw Press). A former lecturer of Political Science, Kalpna Singh-Chitnis holds a degree in Film Directing from the New York Film Academy and works as an independent filmmaker in Hollywood.
DIGITAL, PRINT MEDIA, RADIO, TELEVISION, AND FESTIVAL APPEARANCES
Kalpna Singh Chitnis has been featured in The Telegraph, OC Register, Los Angeles Times, Daily Pilot, OC Weekly, Times of India, Navbharat Times, Prabhat Khabar, Indian Express, Femina, Care. She has appeared on ABC Channel 7, Voice of America, LA 18, Doordarshan(India’s National Television Network), KPFK Radio (Los Angeles), KPFA (Berkley Station) KUCI, Aakashvani(India’s National Radio), and others. She has read at significant platforms like the Berlin International Literature Festival, Sahitya Akademi (India’s highest academy of letters), Poets & Writers, AWP, etc. She has also appeared at several international film festivals.
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