My name is Anu Bharadwaj nee Kandikuppa.  I’m a student of fiction-writing in the MFA Program for Writers, Warren Wilson College. I have a Ph.D. in Finance and worked for eleven years in a consulting firm in Boston then turned to my long-standing interest in writing.  I began exploring the literary world by enrolling in classes and workshops at Grub Street, Boston and attending writers’ conferences, such as the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.  Then I decided to enroll in the Warren Wilson MFA program.

Now I work on occasional consulting projects with my firm but spend much of my time reading and writing. Everyday I get to sit down with a book and my writing, I feel grateful.

I work primarily on short stories.  I enjoy experimenting with strong voice, omniscience, comic and satirical tones, and unconventional forms.  I like introducing the surreal in my stories.  I give in to the strangest of my ideas rather than resist them.  Writers who influence me: Donald Barthelme, Albert Camus (The Fall), Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground), Gogol (“The Overcoat”), Kafka, Steven Millhauser, George Saunders.