Welcome to my online home! You’ve come to the right place if you enjoy books about travel, memoir, transformation, and stories from the history of medicine, or fiction set in other universes. No matter the genre, you’ll feel right at home here if you are a curious person who yearns for wonder and meaning.
I’m Swati Chavda, an author, poet, artist, and former neurosurgeon. I write at the intersection of memory, science, and the stories that shape us, both in real and fictional worlds. You can explore my work through the Books tab in the menu.
Some of my poetry and cover art have appeared in On Spec, Polar Borealis, and Polar Starlight. In 2020, I won the Best Poet Aurora Award for my poem, At the Edge of Space and Time.
As a young reader, I had eclectic reading tastes. Wordsworth’s nature poems and T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland got me into poetry. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos introduced me not only to the wonders of space but also to the long history of our species striving to understand our place in it. This led to reading Stephen Hawking, and later to Brian Greene and Michio Kaku.
From science, I went into science fiction, and then to epic fantasy. All this while, my love for poetry continued. I also enjoyed the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Jason Bourne thrillers, and Ruskin Bond’s anecdotes in the small towns of the Himalayan foothills.
This varied reading taste also reflects in my writing style and choice of subjects. So, dear reader, expect the unexpected while you’re here.
I grew up in the semi-arid plains of Saurashtra in western India that abound with folk tales of ghosts and warriors and colorful bards. Since then, I have moved across various places, meeting interesting people and hearing fascinating stories of places and histories, and witnessing the marks left by our planet’s geological past. At present, I live in the beautiful town of Diamond Valley in western Canada. It is a terrain that resembles The Shire from The Lord of the Rings, with rolling hills and the Sheep River meandering through the valleys. Cattle graze languorously on sunlit ranchlands. And on clear days, you can see the snow-covered Rocky Mountains to the west.
Both these homes—their landscapes, histories, and way of life—have shaped my voice and continue to influence my writing.
I’m currently working on a collection of travelogues and family stories. In addition, I am writing a science fantasy series, Nomads of Time, and a humorous fantasy series, The Pitchfork Chronicles. My characters tend to seek answers to questions ranging from “Is there life after death?” to “Should there be life before breakfast?”
I use too many commas, too few coffee breaks—and there’s a constant battle waging in my head between British and American spelling.
