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. 

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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.

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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.

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