Mary Anne Amirthi Mohanraj (born July 26, 1971) is an American writer, editor, and academic of Sri Lankan birth.
Background
Mohanraj was born in
Colombo
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...
, Sri Lanka but moved to the United States at the age of two and grew up in New Britain, Connecticut.
Her parents, who had originally intended to return to Sri Lanka after a few years and were still considering the possibility for the future, planned in 1983 to send 12-year-old Mary Anne to live with her grandparents for a summer "to reconnect" with her homeland. Just before she was to go, her father received a telegram. "Don't send her. There's trouble coming." He cancelled the trip. As she later wrote,
It's called
Black July
Black July ( ta, கறுப்பு யூலை, translit=Kaṟuppu Yūlai; si, කළු ජූලිය, Kalu Juliya) was an anti-Tamil pogrom that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. The pogrom was premeditated,T. Sabaratnam, Pirapa ...
in Sri Lanka. Riots erupted in Colombo, the capital city, killing thousands of Tamils, the ethnic minority group, the group to which I belong. Brutal chaos ensued – friends of mine who were there tell horrifying stories. They saw tires put around men's necks, saw them lit on fire. They saw women and children dragged from their homes, pulled from cars to be raped and killed in the street.
I saw none of this, but the stories haunt my fiction. Whether I'm writing mainstream lit or fantasy or science fiction, I keep coming back to the war in Sri Lanka. I keep thinking about the life I would have had, if my parents had made different choices. If we had stayed there, and been killed in the riots. If I had gotten on that plane. If we had fled, as so many of my aunts and uncles did, and ended up as refugees in Canada or elsewhere.
Instead, Mohanraj attended
Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School (MPS) is an elite American private college preparatory school for girls founded in 1843, and located in Farmington, Connecticut. The school draws students from 21 states, 31 countries (with dual-citizenship and/or residence), ...
and the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
Mills College
Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
Salt Lake Community College
Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) is a public community college in Salt Lake County, Utah. It is the state's largest two-year college with the most diverse student body. It serves more than 60,000 students on 10 campuses as well as through onl ...
, the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
, and
Vermont College
Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) is a private graduate-level art school in Montpelier, Vermont. It offers Master's degrees in low-residency and residential programs. Its faculty includes Pulitzer Prize finalists, National Book Award winners, ...
. From September 2005 to June 2007, she was a Visiting Professor in the MFA Program at
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
The unive ...
. From 2007 to 2008, she was a Visiting Professor at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, in the Center for the Writing Arts. She taught at the
Clarion Workshop
Clarion is a six-week workshop for aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers. Originally an outgrowth of Damon Knight's and Kate Wilhelm's Milford Writers' Conference, held at their home in Milford, Pennsylvania, United States, it was founded i ...
in July 2008. Since 2008, she has worked as in the English Department at the
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...
(UIC), first as Clinical Assistant Professor, and currently as Clinical Associate Professor. She was Associate Coordinator of
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
Her novel-in-stories, ''Bodies in Motion'', received an honorable mention from the 2007 Asian American Literary Awards and was named a ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' notable book. In 2006, Mohanraj received an
Illinois Arts Council
The Illinois Arts Council is a government agency of the state of Illinois formed to encourage development of the arts throughout Illinois. Founded in 1965 by the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Arts Council provides financial and technica ...
Fellowship in Prose. She was the co-founder and editor-in-chief for ''
Clean Sheets
In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball.
Shutouts are usuall ...
'', an online magazine of
erotica
Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use ...
, from 1998 to 2000. In 2000 she helped found ''
Strange Horizons
''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables.
History and profile
It was launched in September 2000, and ...
'', where she was the editor-in-chief through 2003. In 2004 she founded the Speculative Literature Foundation, which she still directs, and is a founding member and Executive Director of Desilit, an organization designed to support South Asian and diaspora writers. Mohanraj founded and is Executive Director of the biennial Kriti Festival, a celebration of South Asian and diaspora literature and arts, founded in 2005. As of 2013, she is Editor-in-Chief of ''Jaggery'', "A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal". Mohanraj was a host for season 12 of the
Writing Excuses
''Writing Excuses'' is a podcast hosted by authors Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and author and web cartoonist Howard Tayler.
Promoted as "fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart", the f ...
podcast.
Mohanraj's writing frequently explores issues of cultural identity. She has noted in interviews that she feels the complexity of such issues in her own life: "When people ask me what my identity is, I could say I'm Sri Lankan-American ... I could say I was raised Catholic but now I'm agnostic. I could say I've been called a queer, because although I've been with a man the past 17 years, I'm bisexual." She is also something of a sexuality activist; she founded and moderates the Internet Erotica Writers' Workshop, and was a former moderator for soc.sexuality.general.
Mohanraj has had stories published in the ''Wild Cards'' science fiction
shared universe
A shared universe or shared world is a fictional universe from a set of creative works where more than one writer (or other artist) independently contributes a work that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, chara ...
edited by
George R. R. Martin
George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948), also known as GRRM, is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and short story writer. He is the author of the series of epic fantasy novels ''A Song ...
., and has announced that she will have further stories in forthcoming ''Wild Cards'' anthologies ''Fort Freak'', ''Lowball'', ''Low Chicago'', ''Joker Moon'', and ''Three Kings''.
Personal life
Mohanraj lives in
Oak Park, Illinois
Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated ...
, a
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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suburb, with her husband, Kevin Whyte (a mathematician), and their children, daughter Kaviarasi Whyte (born May 18, 2007), and son Anandan Whyte (born September 24, 2009). She is self-proclaimed as polyamorous ("we have an open relationship, and I feel very lucky that I’m able to have other loves in my life"), and has a relationship of over 20 years with writer-editor Jed Hartman, which Hartman acknowledges on his own website.
On February 12, 2015, she announced in her blog that she had been diagnosed with
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a r ...
. She has been documenting the treatment (including
chemotherapy
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...
and a
lumpectomy
Lumpectomy (sometimes known as a tylectomy, partial mastectomy, breast segmental resection or breast wide local excision) is a surgical removal of a discrete portion or "lump" of breast tissue, usually in the treatment of a malignant tumor or brea ...
) in a "Cancer Log" on her website. On February 24, 2015, she married Whyte, with whom she had had a domestic partnership for 23 years.
In 2017, Mohanraj ran for the Oak Park library board.
Democracy for America
Democracy for America (DFA) is a progressive political action committee, headquartered in Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of pub ...
endorsed her candidacy. She was elected on April 4, 2017. In April 2021, she was elected to the D200
school board
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution.
The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...
, which governs
Oak Park and River Forest High School
, motto_translation = Those things that are best
, address = 201 N. Scoville Avenue
, location =
, region =
, town = Oak Park
, county =
, state ...
.
Awards and honors
* 2018 Imadjinn Award for Best Non-Fiction Book (''Invisible 3: Essays and Poems on Representation in SF/F'', with co-editor Jim C. Hines), winner
* 2019 Locus Special Award for Community Outreach & Development, winner
Bibliography
Fiction
* ''Kathryn in the City: A Choose-Your-Own-Erotic-Adventure'' ( Melcher Media, 2003) ()
* ''The Classics Professor: A Choose-Your-Own-Erotic-Adventure'' ( Melcher Media, 2003) ()
* ''Bodies in Motion: Stories'' (
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...
, 2005) ()
* ''The Stars Change'' (
Circlet Press
Circlet Press is a publishing house in Cambridge, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It was founded by Cecilia Tan, who is also its manager. It specializes in science fiction erotica, a once uncommon genre, and its publications often feature BDS ...
, 2013) ()
* ''Perennial: A Garden Romance'' (
Lethe Press
Lethe Press is an American book publishing company based in Maple Shade, New Jersey.ntangible Assets Manufacturing 1997) ()
* ''Silence and the Word'' (
Lethe Press
Lethe Press is an American book publishing company based in Maple Shade, New Jersey.ith_Nnedi_Okorafor.html" ;"title="Nnedi_Okorafor.html" ;"title="ith Nnedi Okorafor">ith Nnedi Okorafor">Nnedi_Okorafor.html" ;"title="ith Nnedi Okorafor">ith Nnedi Okorafor(
Aqueduct Press
Aqueduct Press is a publisher based in Seattle, Washington, United States that publishes material featuring a feminist viewpoint.
History
Aqueduct Press was founded in 2004 by L. Timmel Duchamp. The company has focused on publishing speculat ...
, 2010) ()
Nonfiction
* ''A Taste of Serendib: A Sri Lankan Cookbook'' (
Three Rivers Press
Three Rivers Press is the trade paperback imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House. It publishes original paperback titles as well as paperback reprints of books issued initially in hardcover by the other Crown imprint ...
, 2000) ()
* ''Wet: More Aqua Erotica'' (
Three Rivers Press
Three Rivers Press is the trade paperback imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House. It publishes original paperback titles as well as paperback reprints of books issued initially in hardcover by the other Crown imprint ...
, 2002) ()
* ''The Best of Strange Horizons: Year One'' (
Lethe Press
Lethe Press is an American book publishing company based in Maple Shade, New Jersey.Aqueduct Press
Aqueduct Press is a publisher based in Seattle, Washington, United States that publishes material featuring a feminist viewpoint.
History
Aqueduct Press was founded in 2004 by L. Timmel Duchamp. The company has focused on publishing speculat ...
Lethe Press
Lethe Press is an American book publishing company based in Maple Shade, New Jersey.Strange Horizons
''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables.
History and profile
It was launched in September 2000, and ...
'' (founder and editor-in-chief, 2000–2003)
* ''Jaggery'' (founder; editor-in-chief, 2013–17)