Rickshaw Girl

Hello Backstory fans! Join us for this great episode when we sit down with author Mitali Perkins. Mitali has written numerous Young Adult books, and her book, Rickshaw Girl, has been recently made into a movie. She relays the story behind the book, and how the movie came about, her thoughts about the premiere of the movie, and how it felt to walk the red carpet. Mitali also tells us about how she got into writing, some of her travels, and talks about the writing process for her. Its a great interview with a successful author, and very interesting person. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with her, and know you will as well

A bit more about Mitali in her own words:

,"I was born Mitali Bose in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, and always tried to live up to my name—which means “friendly” in the Bangla language. I had to! Because my family moved so much, it was the only way I could make new friends.

By the time I was 11, I'd lived in Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York and Mexico before settling in California just in time for middle school. Yep, I was the new kid again, in seventh grade, the year everybody barely makes it through.
My biggest lifeline during those early years was story. Books were my rock, my stability, my safe place as I navigated the border between California suburbia and the Bengali culture of my traditional home.
After studying political science at Stanford and public policy at U.C. Berkeley, I taught in middle school, high school and college. When I began to write fiction, my protagonists were often—not surprisingly—strong characters crossing all kinds of borders, seeking community, and promoting justice."