Nandini Bhattacharya was born and raised in India and has called the United States her second continent for the last thirty years. Wherever she has lived, she has generally turned to books for answers to life's big and small questions. Her short stories have been published in MEAT FOR TEA: THE VALLEY REVIEW, STORYSCAPE JOURNAL, RAISING MOTHERS, THE BACON REVIEW, THE BANGALORE REVIEW, OYEDRUM, and OZONE PARK JOURNAL. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop and held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, and Craigardan Writers Residency (forthcoming). She was first runner-up for the LOS ANGELES REVIEW Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the FOURTH RIVER Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), and a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award (2019). LOVE'S GARDEN is her first novel. She is currently working on a second novel about love, racism, xenophobia and other mysteries, titled HOMELAND BLUES. She lives outside Houston with her family and two marmalade cats. Visit Nandini at www.nandinibhattacharyawrites.com