As a 22 year-old singing along to wedding songs with my friends in Kangra (reading from my own transcription-far left), I thought I would write about songs for my PhD thesis at the University of California, Berkeley. I wrote the thesis on stories in religious teaching instead, and that became my first book.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1369.html

That book helped me get a job at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Soon after I moved to Madison, I spent another year in Kangra learning more about songs. Yet when I sat down to write, I decided to first finish a book that features all the Kangra folktales told by Urmila Devi Sood, along with our discussions about their meaning.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mondays-on-the-dark-night-of-the-moon-9780195103496?cc=au&lang=en&

In the meantime, I wrote a novel, co-edited a book about creativity, made a recording of stories for children, composed an introduction for the reissued edition of the first collection of oral tales from India published in English, and wrote a family memoir about spiritual quests.

http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Love-Stars-And-All-That/Kirin-Narayan/9780671793968

http://secretsoftheworld.co/item/abellyfullofsweets

http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A1292C

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5561636.html

I also returned to Kangra and kept thinking about and working on a book about songs. How could I best write about women I had come to love, with whom I was growing older, and who helped me see the experiences in songs from changing perspectives?  I directed my energies into a book about writing with Anton Chekhov as my Muse:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10267375.html

Eventually, I had to accept that this book I’d contemplated so long could never be perfect or complete. To honor my mentors, to bear witness to the enormous dislocations from a more agricultural way of life in Kangra, to share what I learned about the joys of everyday creativity and the magic of the songs, I had to just write the book and get it done. Here it is. Thank you for greeting its arrival!