Mary Anne Mohanraj

Poet and novelist Mary Anne Mohanraj was born in Sri Lanka, but at the age of two moved with her family to Connecticut, where she was raised. She is author of over ten books, including Bodies in Motion (2005), which was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards and a USA Today Notable Book, and has been translated into six languages. She is also the author of the children's book The Poet's Journey (2008) and several erotic novels, and has edited erotica anthologies.

Mohanraj founded the World Fantasy Award-winning and Hugo-nominated magazine, Strange Horizons. She was the guest of honor at WisCon 2010, received a Breaking Barriers Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women for her work in Asian American arts organizing, and won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose.

Mohanraj has taught at the Clarion SF/F workshop, and is now clinical assistant professor of fiction and literature and associate director of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She serves as executive director of both DesiLit and the Speculative Literature Foundation. She lives in Oak Park, just outside Chicago, with her partner Kevin and two small children.