Episode 253 with Akshaj Mehta, Author of Five Books, Including The Butterfly Effect, Intrepid and Curious Journalist, and Advocate for Reading and Writing Diverse Stories

Notes and Links to Akshaj Mehta’s Work

 

   For Episode 253, Pete welcomes Akshaj Mehta, and the two discuss, among other topics, his early experiences with bilingualism, formative and transformative writers and writing, beautiful trips with his mother to the library, his interest in representation of multidimensional and diverse characters and stories, a paradigm shift in reading Steph Cha, his evolving writing and salient themes and issues in his work like multiculturalism, subtlety, and unbiased writing.

 

   Akshaj Mehta, who has been writing since he was four years old, is currently studying political science at UCLA as a second year student. Akshaj is an author with five published books, the most recent titled The Butterfly Effect, which was created in collaboration with the non-profit KidsFirst Roseville. He has also written for the N Magazine and Sacramento School Beat.

 

Buy The Butterfly Effect

 

Akshaj’s 2019 Article for The Sacramento Bee: “The ‘transforming’ power of a name: Learning to embrace the unique name I was given

 

Akshaj’s Story, “The Tragedy of Antonio Solaris”

At about 1:40: Akshaj talks about college life as an incoming sophomore 

At about 2:20, Akshaj

At about 4:10, Akshaj talks about sparks for his love of reading-shout out to mothers who bring kids to libraries

At about 6:20, Akshaj expands on the plot of his first novel, Super Mouse

At about 7:10, Akshaj responds to Pete’s questions about an important writing assignment about the power of his name

At about 9:20, Akshaj reads the opening of the article mentioned above

At about 10:25, Akshaj responds to Pete asking about the experience of writing about his name and if the writing of it was “cathartic”

At about 11:35, Akshaj reflects on how he looks back at the topics of the article and how he sees his experiences now

At about 13:10, Akshaj replies to Pete’s question about books that have inspired and challenged him-he shouts out Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay

At about 14:20, Pete follows up on how Akshaj might see Cha’s book differently after a few years and spending time in LA; Akshaj also talks about how an assignment in English class based on the novel brought him back into fiction

At about 18:00, Pete and Akshaj read from and discuss Akshaj’s story written in English class, “The Tragedy of Antonio Solaris”

At about 19:00, Akshaj talks about the variety of articles he has written for UCLA publications

At about 20:25, Akshaj’s view of journalism and heavy topics and philosophies are discussed 

At about 24:00, Akshaj shares an interesting idea about mitigating bias in journalistic work

At about 24:40, Akshaj’s talks about his school senior project and connections to ideas of representation and his book for children, The Butterfly Effect

At about 26:35, Akshaj’s pinpoints how he and illustrator Alexa Bandala approached the art for his children’s book

At about 30:00, Akshaj’s reflects on lessons learned from reading stories with diverse representation to young kids

At about 32:40, Akshaj shares his experience in mock trial and how having to be persuasive has informed and changed his writing

At about 36:10, Pete wonders if/how Akshaj’s reading is different now that he is a published author, and Akshaj’s expands on how his writing has evolved  

At about 39:15, Akshaj talks about his initial reading and later views of Krakauer’s Into the Wild

At about 41:00, Akshaj talks about exciting future projects 

At about

 

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    Please tune in for Episode 254 with Jami Attenberg, the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including The Middlesteins, All Grown Up and a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home. Her work has been published in sixteen languages; her novel, A Reason to See You Again is set to be published September 24, which is when her episode will also drop.

   Lastly, please go to ceasefiretoday.com, which features 10+ actions to help bring about Ceasefire in Gaza.