Meet Ananya Vahal of Metro-Atlanta (Kennesaw)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ananya Vahal.

Hi Ananya, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I loved reading and writing since I was a child. I never knew it could be a career. I didn’t know any writers that looked like me. I decided to major in English in college despite many telling me I won’t find a job with an English degree. It’s what I loved and what I was good at. I got my MFA in Writing as well and began my career as a writer. I use my writing to tell marginalized stories whether it is my own experiences or other women that inspire me. In addition to working on my memoir, I began writing comics in grad school. Not long after, I also began teaching writing in different formats including comics. My proudest achievement is the Lung Girl Comic book series I created and published through my nonprofit The Sid Foundation. In 2014, my brother died due to lung transplant complications. In 2015, my family and I founded The Sid Foundation to support lung transplant research and patients and keep my brother’s legacy alive. My brother was an avid comic book reader. One of the ways I decided to raise funds for The Sid Foundation was by publishing a series of comics called Lung Girl Comics to provide a fun and accessible way for my community to learn about lung health. Lung Girl is a 12-year-old South Asian superhero who protects the world from bad guys and lung disease with her robot sidekick Ecmo. We’ve sold hundreds of copies of the comic around the world since the series was first published in 2016. In addition to educating our community, this comic is helping lung transplant patients pay medical bills and funding lung transplant research in the United States. Lung Girl isn’t just saving lives in her comics. I get to use my writing to help people. This is my proudest achievement to date.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There is no such thing as a smooth road. My life is rich with adventures, accomplishments, failures, loss, and plenty of joy. That’s what makes it interesting to me as a storyteller. From people looking down on me for majoring in English to assuming I will be broke and unsuccessful because I am a writer, life has been full of challenges. Building my career as a writer and building a nonprofit organization at the same time was a lot to juggle. However, I was lucky to have some people around that supported my journey. I would not be here without them. There is always luck involved in living a rich life and I was always ready for any ounce of luck or opportunity that came my way. I’m a very curious person so I always wanted to try things before making up my mind on whether it was a good path for me or not. This created many learning opportunities for me and helped me figure out how to make my dreams come true. I would rather try and fail than live with regrets. I’m grateful for all the struggles that helped shape me into the writer and human I am today.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a writer and educator. I love writing so much that I have created and published work in several different genres. In grad school, I specialized in creative nonfiction and worked on my award-winning memoir manuscript. I also developed new media skills and created most of the digital content for my businesses and for other businesses as a work-for-hire. Towards the end of grad school, I began learning how to write comics. In 2016, I published my first comic book: Lung Girl #1. I now have 5 published comics under my belt. I co-authored a creative nonfiction book called Kiss Papercuts Goodbye which was published in 2023. I am currently finishing up my first novel and writing a collection of stories. Other than that, I write for Business Insider. I am also an academic so I write and teach academic writing as well. I am proud of all of my work, however, as I stated earlier, I am most proud of the Lung Girl Comics series. Other than my unique stories and perspectives, what sets me apart is that I see my writing as a superpower and a responsibility to try and make this world a little bit better in any way I can.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters to me most is that I do my best to get the full experience of being human while I’m on this Earth. I’ve seen a lot of untimely death in my life. I’m not afraid of dying, but while I’m alive, I want to make my life as rich in experiences as I can and do my little bit to ease the suffering of others. I try to create as much joy in my life as possible and share it with others if they are open to receiving joy. The best way I know how to accomplish all of this is through my writing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ananyavahal.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ananyavahal
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ananya-vahal/
• Other: https://www.thesidfoundation.org