Meet Kashmira
I grew up in a tropical country and had never seen snow before moving to the United States. My mother tongue is Gujarati and I started learning English in fifth grade. In India I lived in a small city (Bhavnagar) and in a big city (Mumbai).
I moved to Ames, Iowa when I was a teenager to attend college and then to Madison, Wisconsin for graduate school. In short, I stayed with the cold and the snow.
When I was young, I wrote poems in Gujarati and Hindi but not in English. In college I studied Microbiology and worked for many years in that field. When my two daughters were young I started reading books with them. We loved Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, and the books about Ramona Quimby. We also enjoyed books by Lois Lowry, Madeline L'Engle, and Avi.
Here are some jobs I did before becoming a writer:
Caught corn flea beetles one summer
Worked in a bakery, where I learned the difference between a hamburger bun and a Kaiser roll
Worked as a food microbiologist testing milk, cheese, ice cream and other food products for bacterial counts and pathogens
Choreographed and performed Indian dances
Ran a dance school
I started writing my first book, Blue Jasmine, when my daughters completed elementary school. Since that time I have written picture books, middle grade novels, and young adult novels. Leave me a message with any questions or comments; I'd love to hear from you.
Avajo!
(Goodbye in Gujarati is ‘avajo’. It means, visit again.)