PUBLISHED FICTION & POETRY
PUBLISHED FICTION & POETRY
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BOOKS
My debut fiction chapbook is now out on Amazon! It's a collection of 7 short stories.
It's called 'Hormonal House' because all 7 stories are inspired by the sights, sounds, sighs and silences of a single moody house.
These stories were born out of my isolation during the pandemic-induced lockdown between 2020 and 2022, when I spent a disproportionate amount of time locked away in my dilapidated house in Mumbai, where I grew up. As I wallowed in my inner world of literary abundance, every few months a different corner of the house would yield a new fictive character.
Each story has a different protagonist, plot and purpose, and is a universe unto itself, but all 7 stories have thematic throughlines and, together, reflect a dark, atmospheric sensibility. They belong together in mood, clime, color and creative aesthetic. My characters – Vaali, Vaara, Vaayu, Baali, Soki, Hotoli, Botoli, Gabroo, Abaka – are all alter egos of the same spirit.
These stories have been published as separate pieces in different literary magazines but this is the first time the collection has been published in its entirety.
Publisher: Alien Buddha Press.
The book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sQWAag
Hormonal House - About each story:
The Pigeon Portrait: A story about ephemeral moments that have the power to stun us into creativity. But the press of ordinary life is too heavy to let these transient moments of inspiration breathe for more than a few seconds. What happens then? Nothing.
Read the story here.
Vaara and Vaayu: These alliterative words are the first names of the protagonists of this story. In Marathi, the author’s native language, both words mean 'air'. However, the intensity varies – ‘Vaara' means 'breeze' and 'Vaayu' means 'wind'. It's a story about a woman, her beloved uncle, and a glorious act of love.
Read the story here.
Baali’s Flight: An atmospheric account of a lady’s experience living in someone else’s house for a brief while. Though the story is limited to a single day that turns into night on the page, there are layers, stories and flights within this story. The reader is rewarded with a small twist at the end. The twist is based on an archetypal secret wish common to most humans. The objective is to make the reader own the conclusion, even if it’s for no more than a few minutes, or seconds.
Read the story here.
Soki’s Reflections: This story is about Soki’s field of vision. Trapped indoors for 18 months, her surreal dreams at night have come to mirror the weathered house she inhabits. The story is a meditation on the jailed citizens of the recent pandemic. The author plays with the literal and metaphoric meaning of the word ‘reflections’ and condenses 18 long months into one static scene in which nothing happens.
Read the story here.
Hotoli and Botoli: A dark, edgy story that teases the borders of horror, dystopia and the human condition.
Read the story here.
Gabroo’s Breath: Gentle feminist fiction and an ode to the literary genius of Italo Calvino, author of Invisible Cities.
Read the story here.
Abaka and The Intruder: A macabre tale about three entities – a beautiful woman, a determined intruder and a rickety house. The story has both a climax and an anti-climax.
Read the story here.
About: My debut poetry chapbook 'Yersinia Pestis' has been published by Los Angeles-based Bottlecap Press (September 2023)
Yersinia Pestis, the bacterium that led to the deadly medieval plague, is the eponym of this chapbook, a collection of six poems of varying length and style but similar in theme, mood and clime.
Some of these poems were written during the worst hour of the recent pandemic, while others were born in the afterglow of the carnage. But all six pieces germinated from the same idea, that human beings and the microbes that infect, envenom and slaughter them are very alike. Just like us, these invisible germs want to reproduce and thrive, with little concern for the creatures they live off.
This mix of rhymes and free verse is a meditation on the human condition as seen through the prism of disease. It’s also an ode to the existential angst, despair, disquietude and madness that the plague of our century has left in its wake.
Purchase here.
About: This little book has four works of art in it: a poem that rhymes and three short stories. The poem is a lyrical cry against contemporary trends that are robbing the world of its creativity and intuition. Of the stories, one is a piece of creative non-fiction and the other two are works of autobiographical fiction. One of the stories is an ode to the literary genius of Italo Calvino, author of Invisible Cities.
My Name Is Not Ghost and other things is Ashwini’s fourth chapbook. Her other titles include Hormonal House (fiction), Yersinia Pestis (poetry), and Lithium and other fairy tales (fiction and poetry). Her work tends to be atmospheric and frank with a florid sense of time and place.
Ashwini Gangal is a Mumbai-bred, California-based journalist and fiction writer. About two years ago, a whirlwind romance swept her up from the West Coast of India and tossed her on the West Coast of America. She’s still rubbing her head from the crash, trying to re-orient. Outside of journalism, most of her writing comes from the emotional debris of this move. Migration, she has come to conclude, is a form of insanity.
Published in May 2025.
Purchase here.
About: My second poetry chapbook 'Lithium and other fairy tales' has been published by Los Angeles-based Bottlecap Press (October 2024).
This book is a collection of three types of poetry — haiku, rhyme, free verse — and a good ol’ short story.
These seven pieces of work are like seven stray threads sticking out of a garment or carpet, betraying the fabric it’s made of and the dye it is soaked in. The author’s poetry and prose lay bare her present day interiority. Her words come from a place of passionate inquiry into what it means to be among the most complex life form on the planet.
Themes that inform this work include migration, madness and misanthropy. "Lithium," the poem this collection is named after, is inspired by a book titled Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character, beautifully written by Kay Redfield Jamison.
Purchase here.
LIT MAGS
Literary magazines that have published my fiction and poetry include Lit.202 (Cheltenham, UK), Danse Macabre (Las Vegas, USA), Piker Press (California, USA), The Aleph Review (Lahore, Pakistan), Papers Publishing (New York, USA), Vocivia Magazine (Philadelphia, USA), San Antonio Review (Texas, USA), Cowboy Jamboree Magazine (South Carolina, USA), Zooanthology (Virginia, USA), Sad Goose Cooperative (Minneapolis, USA), ZVONA i NARI (Croatia), The Bangalore Review (India), Penumbra Literary and Art Journal (California, USA), The Unconventional Courier (Northeast Coast, USA), Wind-up Mice (San Francisco, USA), Paragraph Planet (Brighton, UK), The Hooghly Review (India), One Art: Journal of Poetry (Philadelphia, USA), Oranges Journal (Bristol, UK), Sein und Werden (UK), Tap into Poetry (Manchester, UK), Iceblink Creative Writing Magazine (Los Angeles, USA), Six Word Memoirs (London), Write City Magazine (Chicago Writers Association), Bottlecap Press (Los Angeles, USA), Alien Buddha Press (Phoenix, Arizona - USA), Roi Faineant Press (USA), Museum of Americana (USA), Sage Cigarettes Magazine (USA), The Bitchin’ Kitsch (USA), India Currents (San Jose, USA). I was a Pushcart nominee in 2024.
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