Sejal Shah
Pittsford, NY
Writing
Sejal Shah is an artist, dancer, poet, writer, and teacher, whose work crosses genres and disciplines. The daughter of immigrants from Kenya and India, Sejal is the author of the award-winning essay collection, This Is One Way to Dance (University of Georgia Press), chosen as a New York Times Sunday recommendation and NPR best book of 2020 and included on 32 most-anticipated or best of lists in the Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, The Millions, Ms. Magazine, PEN America, The Rumpus, and Self. Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions, Guernica, The Guardian, and Lit Hub, among others. This Is One Way to Dance has also been recognized by the CLMP Firecracker Awards and received the Nautilus Books for a Better World Gold Award in Lyric Prose. Sejal’s groundbreaking Kenyon Review essay on invisible disability and neurodiversity, “Even If You Can’t See It,” was named a Longreads Editors’ Pick. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Blue Mountain Center, the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, Kundiman, Millay Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Sejal lives in her hometown of Rochester, New York.