Sita Brahmachari
Sita Brahmachari is an internationally award-winning author of Children’s and YA novels, novellas, short stories, poetry and plays. Sita’s writing began in theatre, and she has developed new writing projects and performances for The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court and The South Bank. Sita debut novel Artichoke Hearts won the Waterstones Children’s Book Award (2011). In 2019 her best-selling novel Where The River Runs Gold was Waterstones and Blackwells Book of the Month. When Secrets Set Sail (2021) was Blackwells book of the month and she was a World Book Day author with The River Whale (2021).
Sita‘s many novels and novellas have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and the UKLA Book Award numerous times. In 2018 she received the Honour for writing from The International Board of Books for Young People for Tender Earth. She has an MA in Arts Education (The Central School of Speech and Drama,1999) and has worked widely in diverse communities to mentor new writing for which she has created her own ‘Patchwork Storytelling Method.’ In theatre Sita co-created and scripted a celebrated theatre production inspired by Shaun Tan’s graphic novel The Arrival (2013). Sita’s YA novel When Shadows Fall was shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal (2023). Sita was shortlisted for the Ruth Rendell Literacy Award (2023). Sita’s workshops with refugee children contributed to the story of the globally award-winning animation Footsteps on The Wind (2020).
Sita speaks regularly at national and international festivals and in schools. She has been Book Trust Writer in Residence, is Associate Lecturer in Children’s and YA Literature at Goldsmiths University and is Writer in Residence at Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants. Sita is a Royal Literary Fellow, a Fellow of The Society of Authors and an Honorary Member of the Youth Libraries Group.