Jenny Bhatt was born in Gujarat, India, grew up in Bombay, and has lived and worked around the globe. But for the past several years, she has made her home in the Dallas area and established an international reputation as a writer, translator, literary critic, podcaster and instructor.
“I knew I wanted to be a writer after I won a children’s short story contest in India at age 10,” Bhatt said in an email. “But I also was mindful of my parents’ aspirations and all the sacrifices they made for our education.”
So, she became an engineer and worked in the United Kingdom, Europe and different parts of the United States until her mid-40s. She began taking writing workshops in her late 20s, but couldn’t consider a full-time MFA program or writing as a career because of her status as an immigrant on a work permit, she said.
