In conversation with Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

This week I’m in conversation with Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar. I was fortunate, back in 2012 to come across Mohana’s work and her book ‘Love comes later’. She very kindly graced my Thursday Throng in an interview and since then has gone on to win several awards for her work, including Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013.

When we talked she explained how she felt about her challenging relationship with writing and gives a fantastic insight into the inner world of the writer. One piece of advice she gave was that a would-be author needs to be very clear about why they are writing in the first place, and at the very least be honest with themselves; as we’ve both found out, a book written hoping for literary and financial success is a very different beast from one written for friends and family!

Since 2012 Mohana has continued to do stand-up comedy, yet another type of writing; and she was hoping to take her one-woman show ‘Being brown is my super power’ to the Ediburgh Fringe and the United Solo festival in New York and London, sadly the first two events have been cancelled, but we both hope she’ll be here in 2021 for London.

Mohana had been toying with the idea of turning her books into audio books and took the opportunity during the coronavirus lockdown to do just that, she is currently attempting to tackle one chapter a day and during our conversation she explains just how hard it is, when the end-result can seem so effortless.

If you’d like to learn more about Mohana, why not check out her website at mohadoha.com.