20 best genre fiction writers from other countries to expand your horizons

Ambiguity Machines (Cover image via Small Beer Press)

3. Vandana Singh

Vandana Singh currently works as an Associate Professor at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts. She also happens to be the Chair of the University’s Department of Physics and Earth Science. This certainly seems like enough to keep anyone professionally occupied, if not exhausted. Singh, however, apparently has a serious reserve of energy, given that she is also a recognized science fiction writer.

Singh was born and raised in New Delhi, India. She and her siblings grew up in a bilingual household, speaking, reading, and eventually writing in both Hindi and English. Eventually, she started to read the works of classic American and British science fiction authors, such as Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke.

According to Singh, she was all set to work at a science institute in India after earning her PhD in America. However, her growing family life drew her to return to the United States. In truth, she admits that having young children and a tough job market pushed her to step aside from academia for a while. While homeschooling her daughter, Singh began to move back towards her love of writing and science fiction. Since then, she’s published numerous short stories and children’s novels.

She published her short story collection, The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories, in 2009. In the title story, a woman tries to convince her husband that she is now occupied by tiny aliens. The previously small world of her body has become blown up, so large and vast that it can contain whole civilizations. In other tales, people cross paths with alien strangeness, This includes a young girl who sees a strange geometric shape that could be a spaceship, a weapon or a very strong hallucination. Singh’s most recent collection is Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories.