Anuja Varghese is a writer, reviewer, editor, and fiction editor with The Ex-Puritan Magazine. Her work has appeared in Hobart, the Malahat Review, the Fiddlehead, Plenitude Magazine, and others. Her stories have been recognized in the PRISM International Short Fiction Contest and the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She writes literary fiction, speculative fiction, and erotica/romance – and combinations of all three – where women of colour get leading roles. Anuja has work included in When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead, an anthology of BIPOC gothic horror from, and Queer Little Nightmares, an anthology of queer monster stories. Chrysalis, Anuja Varghese’s debut collection, delves into complex intersections of family, community, sexuality, and cultural expectation, taking aim at the ways in which racialized women are robbed of power and revelling in the strange and dangerous journeys they undertake to reclaim it. Reviews have called the collection powerful and punchy, with Quill & Quire saying “Varghese’s women are like her words: brutal, elegant, and resonant. Xtra describes the stories as “thoughtful, surprising, horrifying, tender portrayals of urgent transformation. Varghese’s dedication to upending expected queer and immigrant narratives, and to spotlighting complexity in relationships is welcome and invigorating.” Anuja lives in Hamilton with her partner, cats, and kids.

Appearing in 20. Folklore, Fable, and Fantastical Females