Shastri Akella worked at a street theater troupe and at Google for five years and then earned his MFA in fiction at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). His works has appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, Electric Literature, The Common, Rumpus, World Literature Today, Danse Macabre, and European Stages, among other places. His novel, written during his MFA years, a queer love story between Indian street theater actor and an English musician set in postcolonial India, is currently on the market.