Veera Hiranandani
Faculty, MFA in WCYA [On Leave]
Profile
Veera Hiranandani is the award-winning author of several books for young people. Her most recent middle-grade novel, How to Find What You’re Not Looking For, received the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award, the 2022 Jane Addams Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2022 National Jewish Book Award. The Newbery Honor-winning The Night Diary also received the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award, the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature, and several other honors. Her first novel for young readers, The Whole Story of Half a Girl, was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and was a South Asia Book Award Highly Commended selection. She’s also the author of the chapter book series Phoebe G. Green.
She earned her MFA in fiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she now teaches creative writing and lives in the New York area with her family.