Monica Mody

Monica Mody, Ph.D., M.F.A., is a poet, writer, theorist, and educator. She is the author of the cross-genre book Kala Pani, the forthcoming full-length collection Bright Parallel (Copper Coin), and three poetry chapbooks including Ordinary Annals. She was born in Ranchi, India, and lives in San Francisco, ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples.

Mody comes to her writing and scholarship as a border-crossing and cross-genre practitioner. She received her Ph.D. in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (poetry) from the University of Notre Dame, and a Bachelor of Arts and Laws (Hons.) from the National Law School of India University. 

The manuscript of Kala Pani was selected by Shelley Jackson for the 2010 Sparks Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame. Mody's doctoral dissertation, entitled "Claiming Voice, Vitality, and Authority in Post-secular South Asian Borderlands: A Critical Hermeneutics and Autohistoria/teoría for Decolonial Feminist Consciousness," received the 2020 Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology. Among other honors, she has been a recipient of a Center for Cultural Innovation grant, the Cultural Integration Fellowship Integral Scholarship (CIIS), the Zora Neale Hurston Award (Naropa University), and the Toto Award for Creative Writing. 

Readings and performances include Poetry with Prakriti; New Orleans Poetry Festival; Bengaluru Poetry Festival; the Trauma and Catharsis Symposium on Performing the Asian Avant-Garde; the Asian American Writers' Workshop; UC San Diego's New Writing Series; Delta Mouth Literary Festival; Noise Pop San Francisco. Her poetry has been featured in art shows including Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision and Popadum! 

Mody's critical work advances earth-based and decolonial feminist worldviews. Her academic writing has been published in The Land Remembers Us: Women, Myth, and Nature and Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis. She has presented widely, including at the Parliament of World Religions, Symposia of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, Oakland Summer School, American Academy of Religion Western Region, and Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference. 

She has studied and circled with elders, wisdom-keepers, and medicine holders from many earth-based and indigenous traditions, developing an interconnected worldview rooted in ancestral healing practices. She has facilitated and been a part of women’s healing, grief work, divinatory, and community healing sessions, spaces, and circles.