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Home > Diane Mehta

Diane Mehta [1]

Listed as: 
Poet
Public address: 
Brooklyn, NY
New York US
Email: 
dianemehta@gmail.com
Bio: 

Diane Mehta was born in Frankfurt, grew up in Bombay and New Jersey, studied in Boston, and now makes her home in New York City. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Tiny Extravaganzas (Arrowsmith, 2023) and Forest with Castanets (Four Way, 2019). Her debut essay collection Happier Far comes out with the University of Georgia Press in 2025. New work is in The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and A Public Space. Her writing has been recognized by the Café Royal Cultural Foundation and the Peter Heinegg Literary Award, and fellowships at Civitella Ranieri and Yaddo. She was an editor at A Public Space, PEN America, and Guernica. Her latest project is a poetry cycle connected to The Divine Comedy. She is also collaborating with musicians to invent a new way of working through sound together and is poet in residence with the New Chamber Ballet in New York City.

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Born in: 
Frankfurt
Germany
Raised in: 
Mumbai
India
Website: 
https://www.dianemehta.net/ [2]
Prizes won: 

Mehta's work has been recognized by the Café Royal Cultural Foundation, the Peter Heinegg Literary Award, and fellowships at Civitella Ranieri, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Willapa Bay AiR. Her essay ‘Epiphany at the Y’ on learning to swim the crawl and become fit despite chronic pain was syndicated in The Guardian and recorded for their Longreads podcast. The essay was nominated for the 2024 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting at the University of Texas at Austin Center for Sports Media & Communication.

Education: 
Boston University
Agent/Agency name: 
Jennifer Lyons
What I'm reading now: 
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Aeneid by Virgil
Franz Fanon by Adam Shatz
Firebird by Zuzanna Ginczanka
Crow by Ted Hughes
Testimony by Charles Reznikoff
Historiae by Antonella Anedda
Soul by Andrey Platonov
Easily Slip Into Another World by Henry Threadgill
Mr B by Jennifer Homans
Identifies as: 
Jewish
South Asian
Prefers to work with: 
Adults
Any
Illness/Wellness
Immigration
Schools
Seniors
Teenagers
Women

Source URL:https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/diane_mehta

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/diane_mehta [2] https://www.dianemehta.net/