Anita Nahal Arya, Ph.D., is an educator and writer. She has worked in higher education, both in teaching and administration, at various universities for over thirty years. She's been a Fulbright scholar and an NEH fellowship awardee among other laurels in her academic career. She has published, presented papers and seminars, and created numerous workshops in her discipline of history.
On the creative side, Anita is a poet, novelist, flash fictionist, and children's book writer. A two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author. she won the Nissim Prize for Excellence in Literature for her poetry-prose novel, drenched thoughts in 2024. Anita was a finalist for the Tagore Literary Prize in 2023 for her fourth ekphrastic prose poetry collection, Kisses at the espresso bar (Kelsay, 2022). Her third prose poetry collection, What’s wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021), was nominated by Cyril Dabydeen, poet laureate emeritus, Ottawa, Canada, as the best poetry book, 2021, for British Ars Notoria and is mandatory reading in a multicultural society course at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her novel, drenched thoughts is also prescribed in the same course and university.
Anita has one novel, four poetry collections, one of flash fiction, four for children, and five edited anthologies published. Anita’s poems have appeared in numerous journals in the US, UK, Asia, and Australia and anthologized in many collections, including The Polaris Trilogy, slated to be sent to the moon in the SpaceX launch. Anita’s poetry is also part of the anthology, Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets, released by India’s Academy of Letters—the Sahitya Akademi, 2023. Her poems are also housed at Stanford University’s Digital Humanities Initiative. One of her poems, “Hold on baby, we'll soon be home,” was included as part of a video produced by Doordarshan TV, Kolkata, India.
Recently Anita ventured into short filmmaking on her poems, and her first short, “Clubs my sinful dance muse,” was awarded the Best Super Short Film Award by the Five Continents International Film Festival, Venezuela (August 2024). It was also screened at the Alibag and Goa Short Film Festivals in India in 2024. Anita is the secretary of the Montgomery Chapter, Maryland Writers Association, and former editor of the newsletter, Poetry Society of Virginia. She is also an active member of the Northern Virginia Writers Club and the Poetry Society of Virginia. Anita is the daughter of Sahitya Akademi award-winning Indian novelist and professor, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and educationist Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal. She teaches at a university in Washington D.C.
