@sharanyamanivannan
❁ Writer and illustrator. Ilankai Tamil, Malaysia-raised, India-based ❁ My books include "Incantations Over Water", "The High Priestess Never Marries" and "The Queen of Jasmine Country" ❁ IG/Threads: sharanya_manivannan ❁ www.sharanyamanivannan.in
I've been thinking all day about these messages about #TheAmmuchiPuchi, mine and Nerina Canzi's picturebook on bereavement.
This book is now out of print in both India and the UK. It's been such a supportive resource for many families, and I can only hope for its return. 🦋
Thank you so much!
Love, lovelessness, longing and belonging are themes that appear across my body of work. This event at Crossword, Phoenix MarketCity #Chennai on Valentine's Day will focus on my books #IncantationsOverWater & #MermaidsInTheMoonlight published by @westlandbooks.bsky.social. Do come! 💕
Dropped some book recommendations in the February 2026 issue of Your Platform, India's first in-train lifestyle magazine.
www.instagram.com/p/DUewpysgZe...
“Be kind, be involved, believe in your art,” he said. “At a time when people tell you art is not important, that is always the prelude to fascism. When they tell you it doesn’t matter, when they tell you a fucking app can do art you say, if it’s that important, why the fuck do they want it so bad? The answer is because they think they can debase everything that makes us a little better, a little more human. And that, in my book, and in my life, includes monsters.”
Love this from Guillermo del Toro
Bangalore-bound this week for the alèy litfest at MAHE:
On ebbs, flows and making space for the mysterious: www.instagram.com/p/DM-gkdTSlo...
#cambodia #writersandartists #mermaids
Spotted in Siem Reap: Sovann Macha, one of my favourite mermaids and a star of my graphic novel #IncantationsOverWater, along with her lover Hanuman!
Thanks so much for sharing!
#poetry Bluesky, assemble!
I recall being floored by a prose poem called "Husband" many years ago, and I want to read it again. It was by an Asian-American writer, possibly queer. Can you help me find it, please?
Come to my table, my beloveds, my betrayers. Let me feed you from the bowl of life. Cross my threshold empty of palm, open of heart, eager of belly. I have picked only fruit already fallen and herb without malice and flesh anointed and absolved. I have placed a carnation beside each of your knives. —Sharanya Manivannan, "Benediction for the Feast" Issue 98.2, Selections from the Digital Schooner Global Fusion Series
"Benediction for the Feast" by @sharanyamanivannan.bsky.social appears in a Feast-themed portfolio in our latest issue, which celebrates our digital Fusion series.
Get the new issue here: prairieschooner.unl.edu/issue/summer...
Thank you!
Aiiiiii look at this beauty!!! 📚💙
Thank you! You could ask your local bookstore or library to bring it in?
ANNOUNCEMENT!: I've been waiting over 3 years to be able to tell you that #MermaidsInTheMoonlight, the little book I drew and wrote and published in the first year of the pandemic is now back in print. This piece of my💙 has had a tumultuous journey, as have I. I'm grateful she's back.
Full moon tonight. As good a time as any to read this, if you'd like to and haven't already. 🎑
Full moon tonight. As good a time as any to read this, if you'd like to and haven't already. 🎑
A lovely and visceral lunar exploration by Sharanya Manivannan.
Thank you so much!
For the first time since 2021, I dusted off my drawing tablet and created a new illustration, "Eclipse Bloom". It was a true pleasure to create the words and art linked here. I hope for more such confluences and spaces that coax my writing and art out this way.
In March, I sat down to write a personal essay for this commission - very simply titled "On Moonlight". I was requested to share some of my published art to accompany the piece, which I did, but something miraculous also happened.
I had been on Dark 'n' Light's The Subverse podcast some years ago (open.spotify.com/episode/0UDZ...), and was intrigued by the possibility of a new collaboration.
A few months ago, after a new short story was published, I put out a wish publicly - that I would receive more commissions to create. To my delight, Susan Mathews of Dark 'n' Light reached out, and her team sent a deck of prompts.
NEW WORK: A personal essay and artwork on the subject of moonlight. Out now in Dark 'n' Light. darknlight.com/projects/per...
I really wish the Indian government would make the burning of rubbish punishable by law.
Eid Mubarak. May Palestine be free. 🍉
Good morning to all who giggled at today's Wordle.
Oh wow! I love her poetry. Looking forward.
A gentle note that before you roll your eyes at posts on how it will soon be 5 years since the pandemic began in India (and elsewhere), some of our lives altered irrevocably from 2020 on, some of us have yet to recover, if we ever can. It is not just the years we are counting.