2023 South Asian Youth Initiative Conference
Panelists:
Fatimah Asghar: Co-Editor, Halal if You were Me
Annika Sharma: Co-founder and Co-host, That Desi Spark Podcast
Nehal Tenany: Editor, Brown Girl Magazine
About the Speakers
Fatimah Asghar is the Co-Editor of Halal if You were Me. Fatimah Asghar is an artist who spans across different genres and themes. A poet, a fiction writer, and a filmmaker, Fatimah cares less about genre and instead prioritizes the story that needs to be told and finds the best vehicle to tell it. Play is critical in the development of their work, as is intentionally building relationships and authentic collaboration. Their first book of poems If They Come For Us explored themes of orphaning, family, Partition, borders, shifting identity, and violence. They also wrote and co-created Brown Girls, an Emmy-nominated web series that highlights friendship among women of color. Their debut lyrical novel, When We Were Sisters, explores sisterhood, orphaning, and alternate family building, and was released October 2022.
Nehal Tenany LA-based Content Marketing professional by day at Silicon Valley startup, Gong and a lifestyle & travel blogger and co-host of the That Desi Spark podcast by night. That Desi Spark, formerly known as The Woke Desi, is a bold podcast created by three founders who recognized a space void of color and conversation around the topics that impact dual-identity, South Asian millennials the most. From education to entertainment and social justice issues to social media trends, That Desi Spark approaches each episode with compassion, advocacy, and information, bolstered by subject-area experts and unfiltered celebrity moments. The podcast is about to hit it’s four-year mark, with over 400,000 listens, 10.2K followers on Instagram, a robust social media presence, and coverage by Forbes, The Times of India, Urban Asian, Brown Girl Magazine, and Scroll.in and a recent feature on billboards across New York and San Francisco from Spotify.
Annika Sharma is a published rom-com author. Her debut rom com novel, “Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words,” the first in the Chai Masala Club series, earned starred reviews from the Library Journal and BookList, and was described as a “love letter to both Indian culture and the streets of New York City,” by Publisher’s Weekly. Her next, “Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice,” releases May 2, 2023.
