ANJALI ENJETI

Brown-skinned woman in late forties with dark brown and white layered straight hair that falls past shoulders. Brown long sleeve v-neck shirt, brown pearls. In the background, a woods with bare trees.

 

 

 

Anjali Enjeti is a former attorney, organizer, and journalist based near Atlanta. She is the author of Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change, which the Washington Post called "a nuanced and much-needed journey into exploring what it means to be American," and The Parted Earth, which was recently selected as a 2022 Book All Georgians Should Read. Her other writing has appeared in Oxford American, Boston Globe, Poets & Writers, Harper’s Bazaar, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere.

Anjali has received awards from the South Asian Journalists Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors, multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, and two notable mentions in The Best American Essays series. A former board member of the National Books Critics Circle, she teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia.

Read more about Anjali on her website.

SESSION: Writing with a Social Justice Lens

What does it mean to write with a social justice lens? In any kind of storytelling, whether fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, or poetry, writing with a social justice lens involves creating vivid three dimensional characters, settings, and riveting storylines that evoke authentic conflicts and worlds. We’ll take a look at how the philosophies behind movement journalism, community organizing, and decolonization can be applied to every genre of creative writing, and how interrogation of the self and rigorous critique can shape fresh and compelling narratives. We’ll discuss the role of imagination in disrupting language and formulaic storylines rooted in white supremacy and the function of authenticity editors.