This week’s Author’s Questions features internationally bestselling author Alka Joshi. Alka Joshi is an expert writer of several novels, the most remarkable being her Jaipur Trilogy. Joshi joins us today to give her best advice on beginning and late stages of writing and publishing. We also learn where her passion comes from as a writer and how she continues to drive that today. Follow along to uncover some exciting writing tips and learn about Alka Joshi’s awesome success story!
Who is Alka Joshi?
Alka Joshi was born in India but immigrated to America with her family at the age of nine. She has a Bachelor’s from Stanford University as well as an MFA from California College of Arts. Joshi is known for her numerous outstanding novels, including, but not limited to, the Jaipure Trilogy: The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, and The Perfumist of Paris. Her debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a New York Times Bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon, Bookclub Pick, an LA Times Bestseller, a Toronto Star Bestseller, an Indie Bookstores Bestseller, a Cosmopolitan Best Audiobook, and an Amazon and Goodreads fav! It was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, which has been translated into 29 languages and is currently in the process of being developed into a show by Netflix. In 2023, Alka Joshi was selected by Forbes as one of 50 Women Over 50 who are breaking age and gender norms today all across the American economy and culture.
Check out her writing tips on Youtube here, as well as her Instagram here, to keep up with her latest accomplishments and day-to-day life as an author!
Alka’s Books: Jaipure Trilogy
The Henna Artist
We are taken to the beautiful city of Jaipur, set in the 1950s, as seventeen-year-old Lakshmi narrowly escapes her abusive marriage. Building a strong reputation for herself as the best henna artist for women in the upper social class, she learns about their dirtiest secrets while she does everything in her power to protect her own. After Lakshmi finally begins to build her own independent life, meets a long-lost sister, and everything seems to be going surprisingly well, her husband finally finds her after years of tracking her down. After all of the work she’s done to build up her career and finally start her own life, he threatens to destroy it all.
There were three kinds of karma: the accumulated karma from all our past lives; the karma we created in this life; and the karma we stored to ripen in our future lives.
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur
As Lakshmi now finds herself married to Dr. Jay Kumar, and directing the Healing Garden in Shimla, Malik graduates from private school and meets a young woman named Nimmi as he leaves to apprentice at the Facilities Office of the Jaipur Royal Palace. As Malik finds himself back in the city of childhood, he finds himself remembering that things pretty much stay the same so long as secrets stay hidden. However, when the city’s cinema balcony suddenly collapses, Malik wonders if all isn’t as it should be as something dark and terrible threatens to overtake everything he cares about. In this sequel in her Jaipure Trilogy, Alka Joshi writes a daring novel full of exciting characters and a thrilling mystery that is simply unputdownable.
There’s more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.
The Perfumist of Paris
In this final novel of her trilogy, Alka Joshi brings us back to Paris in 1974, where we visit Lakshmi’s sister Radha and her husband and two daughters. Radha is still devastated from having to give up her son when she was just a child herself, but she finds that her family and work life make it all better. Although her husband doesn’t want her working, helping to design unique fragrances for her master perfumer is what brings her true joy. As she eventually travels to India to visit Lakshmi and increase her talents as a perfumer herself, Radha learns that her long-lost son is traveling back to Paris to find Radha, but this could be the thing that destroys her already vulnerable marriage. Will Radha somehow be able to pull things back together or will her family be her ultimate downfall?
I’ve come to think that some people are meant to be in our lives for a certain length of time and not a moment more.
What advice do you have for late-stage authors like yourself, who’ve had a career and are now looking to become authors?
“I think that the most important thing that people can do is to take a writing workshop with a published author, somebody who’s published in recent years, because they’re the people who will have the pulse on the book industry, and also could guide you toward an agent or an editor. You have to listen to people in those workshops. Make sure that you understand how books are critiqued, how manuscripts are critiqued, and also how to critique other people’s work. And then I think the most important thing are what I call the three P’s. This is Passion, Persistence, and Patience. You have to have passion for your subject matter because that will keep you going for a long time. You have to have persistence because you’re going to go through a lot of revisions before you ever get piece of work for publication. And then finally, you need patience with yourself. Sometimes you just have to take time away, you have to take time off, and that is a really important thing to recharge.
How are you inspired to write the stories you tell?
“Well, it’s very important for me to write stories about women who are in charge of their own destiny, and when they are not, when they are being repressed by society, then I want to tell that story about how they use their ingenuity, their moral character, their strength in themselves, their belief in themselves as human beings to escape that repression. I write about India because that’s my birthplace. It’s important for me to write about where I came from, and what are the strengths of where I came from, what the women are like where I came from. And I write historical fiction because I want people to understand what was happening in India pre-independence, during independence, and post-independence.”
What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?
“Oh my gosh, I love creating these worlds. I get to live in these worlds while I write. These are characters from my imagination, these are settings from my imagination, and some are based in historical fact and setting, but what’s really wonderful is when the characters start taking over, and they do, you get to know them really well, if you’re writing on a consistent basis. And they start doing things and saying things that you do not expect; it is the most rewarding thing about writing. They come to life right before your eyes, the way that they are going to come to life right in front of your readers’ eyes when they start reading your book. That’s just magic.
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s Author’s Questions! Watch the live video here and stay tuned to her next one! We hope you loved hearing about Alka Joshi’s unique background, love for writing, and awesome advice to all young writers out there! Don’t forget to visit her Instagram page to keep up with her life as a writer and to hear more tips and tricks about the writing and publishing world!
Visit our bookshelf, Author’s Corner Spotlight: Female Authors, to keep up with these novels and more by other exciting female authors!
Take a look at this article written by our amazing Aliyah Rios for another exciting Author’s Questions read on more female authors!
