Chaitali Sen is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven, which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction (Sarabande Books 2023).  Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard, Ecotone (receiving a special mention in the 2019 Best American Short Stories Anthology), Shenandoah, New England Review, New Ohio Review, Colorado Review, Electric Literature, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult, and many other publications. Kirkus Reviews called The Pathless Sky “a searingly vivid portrayal of the depths of human emotions-from the first glow of young love to the deeper strength of middle-aged commitment. A poignant and sophisticated work couched in lyrical, effervescent prose.” It was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Fiction, and included on Idra Novey’s Buzzfeed list “10 Books That Challenge Our Political Landscape by Inventing New Ones,” Library Journal’s “Top Fall Indie Fiction,” and Mic.com’s “25 Essential Reads to Make Women’s History Last Longer than a Month.”

A graduate of the Hunter College MFA in Fiction, she has been a panelist, presenter, and instructor for Writers League of Texas, Writing Workshops Dallas, Grub Street’s Muse & Marketplace Conference, Texas Book Festival, and The Asian American Writers Workshop. She was a Tennessee Williams scholar at the 2013 Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a featured writer at the Ithaca College New Voices Festival in 2017, and a featured writer at the first annual Tasveer South Asian Literary Festival in Seattle in 2019. She is currently at work on her second novel.