2. Poet introduction

Shanthini Govindan was born on \(20\) March \(1959\) in San Francisco, California. Although she was born in the United States, she was originally from India. Her father, Madhavan Kutty, who was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Services, hailed from Kerala, the southern part of India. Due to the nature of his work, she did her schooling in different parts of the world, including Prague, Switzerland and Sri Lanka. But she graduated from the University of Madras with a bachelor's degree in Economics. She later did her master's degree in English Literature, which gave her inspiration to write stories and poems.

 

 

She was an ardent writer of children's literature. She broke down complex themes in a simple and understandable way for the children. She has written more than \(50\) books which includes poetry collections, stories, picture books for children across all ages. She has published around \(350\) articles for children's magazines. Her works are translated into many languages around the globe. She is also well known for writing on the sections of mythology and historical fiction in one of the best children's magazines "Chandamama".

 

She was awarded research fellowships by the government for writing historical and children's fiction. She was the first Indian to be invited to the Foundation Writers Workshop, conducted at Chautauqua. It was a conference that invited many writers from all over the world who focussed on children's magazines. She has also conducted numerous workshops on creative writing for children and students across India.

 

Her writing career started off when she published "A Tale of Tuffy Turtle", a story she had made up for her son, in the National Competition for writers of Children's books organized by the Children's Book Trust. She went on to be nominated in all categories and won numerous prizes. Her poems and stories are used by most schools in their academic discipline.

 

Some of her works include: