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Anjoli Roy

@anjoli.roy.writes

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author of _Enter the Navel: For the Love of Creative Nonfiction_ (The Operating System, 2020) | PhDJ for @itslitwithphdj

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✨Hi loved ones✨I am trying to find a home for my speculative memoir, Revolution in the Blood, with small presses--the rabble-rousers, risk-takers, and change-makers of the publishing industry. I am tracking all the usual thoroughfares (P&W, Submittable's "discover" feature, ChillSubs, all the listservs, etc), and I welcome personal recs if you read this and think I should try a particular house.

Most of you know that I've been working on the story of recovering my revolutionary great-grandfather, Kali Nath Roy, for more than a decade (12 years, as of this summer). Writerfolks will relate to the long road of carving story from stone, and then the journey to find a story's home: I have written and rewritten this story so many ways, with different scopes, different experiments, and different emotional arcs, even.

During this latest season of querying agents, I learned that the memoir/nonfiction market is currently pretty dire. Nonfiction acquisitions are down ~30% after publishers overinvested/lost on returns, which means the acquisitions that do go through are for the celebrity and platformed nonfiction writers.

But we don't give up! I visit Kali Nath on my altar to thank him for sharing his story with me and to ask for help. I invite help from all directions. And I'm sending love out to you all too. 🪔✨🧿 by @anjoli.roy.writes

Writer-parent milestone! Gus crept down the aisle toward me until I called her up. We didn't last too long on the mic together--she wasn't into sharing, lol--but watch out, world. This kid is coming! And by that I mean she's already here. 🧿 So lucky, we are.✨

Thank you so much to @hoolana.publishing @bambooridge @dashophnl for collaborating on the Summer Lit Jam and Poetry Grill yesterday. It was fun to share a piece of "On Love and Cats: A Tale in Parts" with my 3yo wildcat on my hip and to listen to so many great storytellers. We had a time 🥰

May your writing be fruitful and associative and full of startling, heartfelt, knife-edge truths. Love you all 💜

📸 by @auntylilith by @anjoli.roy.writes

Hiya, writer friends! Save the date for this fun reading on June 6 at @dashophnl! Alongside these cool writer folks, I'll be reading from my weirdo cat story published in Hoʻolana 1 that has way too many cat facts in it and is also about how the animals we're raised with might teach us how to love and how to receive love. See you then!

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☀️ Start your summer with stories, songs, poetry, and pupu. 🍙

Join @bambooridge and @hoolana.publishing for a Summer Lit Jam & Poetry Grill! It's a laid-back afternoon of readings, music, talk story, and community writing at da Shop in Kaimukī. A garage-style party to build pilina.

We’re celebrating writers from Ho‘olana Journal 01 and Bamboo Ridge Press with poetry, fiction, favorite summer jams, and a collaborative community poem created together during the event.

Stay after the readings to eat, connect, and help us welcome the season.

Share in the comments, what's your favorite summer jam (song or book!)?
📚🔥🎶

Sat. June 6 • 2:00–4:00 pm
📍 da Shop: books + curiosities

Featuring:
Mahina Kauhi, @anninoshita, @oishi_so_desu, @mistahdonald, @mistysanico, @anjoli.roy.writes, @dnandiodhiambo, @dokkaebi13

RSVP at link in bio!
Or: tr.ee/4gpeIf

#BambooRidgePress #HoolanaPublishing #LitJournal #PoetryReading #HawaiiWriters #LocalLiterature #CommunityWriting by @anjoli.roy.writes

I first encountered the genius who is Tala Khanmalek (aka mecca monarch + @insurgentpoetics ) in May 2022 when they submitted materials for the literature-and-music podcast I cohost in Honolulu with Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng, It’s Lit with PhDJ. We had just published an episode featuring heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, whom I’d met at VONA years earlier, and heidi had done us the honor of sharing our call for materials with Tala.

This, and processes like this, is how community blooms. I know this even though I also don’t understand how Tala and I have still not yet officially met in person, as of this writing (though we were in the same room once in 2018!). Tala’s work draws you close, and the intimacy their work creates is a testament to their creations.

As part of their submission to It’s Lit and that first episode we ended up making together, Tala shared the first piece they’d written about their father after his death. I was struck by the complex feelings of love and critique Tala was able to hold at the same time for him and his “posthumously found objects.” Today, I’m thrilled to see this piece is now part of Tala’s chapbook An Infinity of Traces, forthcoming with Blue Cactus Press in late 2026. I am so looking forward to holding this chap in my hands.

The conversation that follows (link in stories!!) touches on ekphrasis, what it means to write into the space between us, how uncategorizable both love and liberatory writing are, the ceremonies that must be found amid this era of violence with ICE and the US-Israeli war machine, the link between parenthood and grief, a butterfly who is also a grandpa, and much more. by @anjoli.roy.writes

So grateful to my writer soulmate @rajivmohabir for interviewing me for the amazing @apogeelit on my speculative nonfiction / memoir-in-progress about freedom-fighter Kali Nath Roy, a great-grandfather I never met. Peep the full text of this interview at the link in my story. Endless thanks to @insurgentpoetics for the invite to submit an interview about the project too. Love you all. We need our revolutionary ancestors now more than ever.

And for the close readers, check out the references to @kendrick_loomar and @devislaskar, two more stars I'm guided by in my writerly constellation. by @anjoli.roy.writes

What a blast last week's Brown Bag talk was. Thank you again to the @cbrhawaii for the invitation to come share. Link in stories for anybody who has a slow hour to spend listening to my half-mumbling 😉 Heart you all.

"Speculative Nonfiction and Ancestral Haunting"
Brown Bag #868 (holy moly!)

#KaliNathRoy #SpeculativeNonfiction #CreativeNonfiction by @anjoli.roy.writes

Super grateful to have this essay out with the good folks at @capecodeditions! Special shout out to @m.d.mcintyre for selecting this piece and helping carve it from the stone. Thank you, @kendrick_loomar beloved, for seeing the guts in this piece and pushing me to send it out. Thank you, @biblio_phile, for the support you gave too when I was mid draft in Castle, and you gave me that framing to think about how we can betray ourselves. And of course shout out to @annaakana and @maytaleyal who first inspired this piece. Love you all. And check out this gorgeous cover image! Obsessed. by @anjoli.roy.writes

#MIA is back ! What a wonderful evening at the HUB Coworking space ! Huge mahalo to readers @mistysanico @kealii0529 @amghuynh @anjoli.roy.writes and Kristiana Kahaukawila ! Thanks to all that came out !rhanks to sponsors @hubcoworkinghi @kundiman.community by @anjoli.roy.writes

Thank you so much to everybody who came out last night to celebrate MIA's revival! It was a blast to read and listen to luminous folks who I admire so much. Next week I'm giving a lil talk about my ancestral research and storytelling project. If you're free at noon on Thursday, come through! by @anjoli.roy.writes

Pls join us for an evening of readings ! Registration is free but pls RSVP ! Link in the bio by @anjoli.roy.writes

Quick write. May turn this into something. Message from Pasadena, summer 2025. No pictures. by @anjoli.roy.writes