Mallika Rao on honing your voice, the importance of nuanced writing, and making freelance work, work for you
Photo by Raydene Salinas
Welcome back to Creation Stories where we are featuring writer and essayist Mallika Rao, whose work spans immersive journalism to high and low culture reviews, bringing her unique narrative voice to each piece. Mallika's work has been featured in Vulture, NYMag, Huffington Post, Jezebel and The Believer and we talk about honing your voice, the importance of nuanced writing, and making freelance work work for you.
As I was in need of some creative community and support while feeling a bit burned out, Mallika was such an energetic breath of fresh air and I know you will enjoy this episode. Mallika is a freelance writer, whose creative nonfiction has been featured in the top outlets of the genre including Vulture, NY Mag, Huffington Post, Jezebel, The Believer. The Believer piece, Three Bodies in Texas, we talk about the most in this episode and it was part of the last volume of that great magazine. Her work has been recognized by the LA Press Club for best industry feature for her writing on Apu from the Simpsons and Longreads best of the year for a piece on Dallas Strip Mall Restaurants. She herself has done a podcast, called HiberNation, set in the realm of sleep which was Ambie nominated. You can check out some of her most recent work at Vulture and the link to her full website mallika-rao.com for more work on our website - I'll link some of the great work she mentions throughout this episode online.
More Mallika Links here!:
Vulture Book Review on The Candy House by Jennifer Egan and The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
Her piece on the word Jugaad, mentioned in the interview
Her review of the latest collection by Indian author Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in The Atlantic
Mallika references the work of Saki Knafo, whose work can be seen here and via his award-winning podcast for Gimlet called Conviction
