Lavanya Lakshmi

Lavanya was born in New Delhi, India and grew up in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong before coming to the US for her undergrad and master’s degrees. She lived in New York for nine years before moving to Toronto, which she currently calls home. Lavanya has worked in the publishing industry for thirteen years and is on the board of directors for the Festival of Literary Diversity.

Her debut novel, LEAVE AND COME BACK, will be published in June 2026 by Pamela Dorman Books in the US and Doubleday Books in Canada. Prior to this, she has written for such prestigious spaces as the fifteen half-used notebooks in her desk drawer, over a hundred separate notes on her iPhone, and briefly during when she was four, on the walls of her house.