Meghna Pant is an Indian author, journalist and speaker. She has won a variety of awards for her contribution to literature, gender issues and journalism. In 2012, she won the Muse India National Literary Awards Young Writer Award for her debut novel ''One-and-a-Half Wife''. Her collection of short stories, ''Happy Birthday and Other Stories'' was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Award.

Career

Pant previously worked as a business news anchor with

Times Now Times Now is an English news channel in India owned and operated by The Times Group. The channel launched on 23 January 2006 in partnership with Reuters. It is a pay television throughout India. Until 2016, it was India's most popular and the m ...

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching t ...

and Bloomberg-UTV in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

and New York City. She reported from the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

(NYSE) during the 2008 financial crisis. She quit in 2013 to pursue writing full-time, and returned to India. Her debut novel ''One & a Half Wife'' (Westland, 2012) won the national ''Muse India Young Writer Award'' (2014) and was shortlisted for the ''Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award''. Pant's debut collection of short stories ''Happy Birthday'' (Random House, 2013) was long-listed for the ''Frank O'Connor International Award'' (2014).Interview – Meghna Pant
1 October 2016, Openroadreview.com Her second short story collection ''The Trouble With Women'' was published in 2016. In 2015, she began curating a monthly panel discussion in Mumbai called "Feminist Rani", featuring interviews with a wide range of Indian feminists. After three years of the discussions, she published a collection of the interviews in her first non-fiction book ''Feminist Rani'' in 2018, co-authored with Shaili Chopra. Her second non-fiction book was ''How To Get Published in India'' in 2019, based on interviews with publishing industry insiders and authors. Pant has written on issues including consent, rape, domestic violence, miscarriage, surrogacy, body-shaming and public safety for women for various publications, including ''The

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia. It was founded by Sunder Singh Lyall ...

'' and ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'', and was the Features Editor at ''

SheThePeople.TV ''SheThePeople.TV'' is an Indian digital media website that focuses on women related news and entertainment in video format, though "The Women's Channel" has a large amount of text based content as well. It was launched in 2015 by an Indian journ ...

''. In 2018, she was awarded the Laadli Media Award for her writing on gender equality. As a survivor of domestic violence, she has also spoken on several platforms, including TEDx, on her personal experience, urging women to speak out against domestic violence. She has also spoken at literary festivals and conferences, including the Jaipur Literature Festival, Tata Literature Live!, Kala Ghoda Literature Festival, Pune International Literary Festival, Young Makers Conclave, #RiseWithTwitter, and The UN Feminist Conference. In 2018, Pant moderated panel discussions at the #MeToo Conversations event hosted by ''

Firstpost ''Firstpost'' is an Indian online news and media website. The site is a part of the Network 18 media conglomerate owned by Reliance Industries, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC-TV18. The ''Network 18'' group was originally owned by Raghav ...

''. Pant's short stories have been published in ''Avatar Review'', ''Wasafari'', ''Eclectica'', and ''QLRS'', and her story "Boonthing" was published in the anthology ''The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east''. She also anchors various women-centric shows for the news portal FirstPost. In 2019, Pant appeared as an expert on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati with Amitabh Bachchan. In 2020, Pant became a podcaster with a show about personal finance called SHOW ME THE MONEY, for Amazon's

Audible Audible may refer to: * Audible (service), an online audiobook store * Audible (American football), a tactic used by quarterbacks * ''Audible'' (film), a short documentary film featuring a deaf high school football player * Audible finish or rush ...

Critical reception

According to Michelle D'Souza of the ''

Khaleej Times ''Khaleej Times'' is a daily English language newspaper published in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Launched on 16 April 1978, ''Khaleej Times'' is the UAE's longest-running English daily newspaper. History and profile A partnership between the U ...

'', her "works come with strong feminist leanings, and showcase multi-dimensional characters, especially women." Her short story collection ''The Trouble With Women'' was reviewed by Aditya Mani Jha of ''

Business Line ''Business Line'' or ''The Hindu Business Line'' is an Indian business newspaper published by Kasturi & Sons, the publishers of the newspaper ''The Hindu'' located in Chennai, India. The newspaper covers priority industry verticals, such as Agri ...

'', who writes that in the book, Pant "shows us how it’s done, how a skilled writer uses journalistic base to create a convincing, sensitive fictional scenario," and references her previous story collection ''Happy Birthday'' as an additional example. ''Feminist Rani'' was praised by

Kamla Bhasin Kamla Bhasin (24 April 1946 – 25 September 2021) was an Indian developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin's work, that began in 1970, focused on gender education, human development and the media. She lived i ...

as "A powerful, sensitive and thought-provoking book that is a must-read for anyone who thinks that women and men are equals, and for those who don’t." Her story "Boonthing" was referred to as "sparkling" in a review by Abdus Salam of the anthology ''The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east'' in ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', and she was described as one of the authors that 'shines through' by Prannay Pathak of the ''

''. Tanvi Trivedi of ''The Times of India'' described ''How To Get Published in India'' as "sure to answer many questions nesting in the minds of aspiring authors." After Pant retold the epic poem

The Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

in one hundred tweets, Sian Cain of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote, "Somehow, Meghna Pant has managed to contain all of the dynamics of power struggle, war, love, lust and greed in her 140 character tidbits."

Honors and awards

* Society Achievers Award (2022) – Winner * The Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize (2022) – Longlist * FICCI Young Achiever's Award (2019) – Winner * Laadli Media Award (2018) – Winner * Bharat Nirman Award (2017) – Winner * FON (Fellows of Nature) South Asia Short Story Award (2016) – Winner * Muse India Young Writer Award (2013) – Winner *

Commonwealth Short Story Prize The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000 to 5,000 words). The prize is open to citizens of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations aged 18 and over. The Commonwealth Short ...

(2018) – Longlist *

Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award __NOTOC__ The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award—named in honour of Frank O'Connor, who devoted much of his work to the form—was an international literary award presented for the best short story collection. It was presented betwe ...

(2014) – Longlist

Staff writer In journalism, a staff writer byline indicates that the author of the article is an employee of the periodical, as opposed to being an independent freelance writer. In Britain, staff writers may work in the office instead of traveling to cover a b ...

(10 June 2014)

''KITAAB''. Retrieved 10 June 2014 * The Cinnamon Press Novel Writing Award (2012) – Shortlist

Bibliography

Novels * ''Boys Don't Cry'' (2022). Penguin Random House. . * ''The Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Good News'' (2021). Penguin Random House. . * ''One & A Half Wife'' (2012). New Delhi: Westland. . Short Stories * ''Happy Birthday!'' (2013). London: Random House. . * ''The Trouble With Women'' (2016). Non-fiction * ''Feminist Rani'' (2018). Penguin Random House. . * ''How to Get Published in India'' (2019). Bloomsbury. .

Personal life

Born in

Shimla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the States and union territories of India, northern Indian state of Himachal Prade ...

, to Sujata and Deep Chandra Pant––both of whom worked in the

Indian Revenue Service The Indian Revenue Service (IAST: ), often abbreviated as IRS, is an Indian government agency that is primarily responsible for collecting and administering direct and indirect taxes. As a central civil service under Group A of the executiv ...

and retired as Chief Commissioners of Income Tax from Mumbai and Kolkata respectively in 2012, Pant is the sister of stand-up comedian

Sorabh Pant Sorabh Pant is an Indian stand-up comedian and writer. He has performed over 250 shows. He was rated amongst India's top 10 stand-up comedians by '' The Times of India''. In a poll by IBN Live in March 2012, he was listed No. 1 of the 30 most ...

. She lives in Mumbai with her husband and two daughters.

References

External links

*
Meghna Pant
at

Penguin India Penguins (order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapt ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pant, Meghna English-language writers from India Writers from Mumbai Indian feminist writers Indian women journalists Indian women short story writers Women writers from Himachal Pradesh Journalists from Himachal Pradesh People from Shimla Indian women novelists Indian business and financial journalists 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian novelists 21st-century Indian journalists Indian short story writers Women business and financial journalists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)