Priyanka Kumar

Priyanka Kumar is the author of Conversations with Birds. Her essays and criticism appear in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Huffington Post, and High Country News. She is a recipient of the Aldo & Estella Leopold Writing Residency, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, an Ontario Arts Council Literary Award, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Kumar wrote, directed and produced the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar. Kumar has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California, and serves on the Board of Directors at the Leopold Writing Program.

  Praise for Priyanka Kumar

“Kumar has the most unique talent. She is one of the most gifted writers I know. Her storytelling gifts make all of us sit up and take notice.”—Joan Tewkesbury, screenwriter of Nashville

“Kumar is master of the hunt. Whether hiking out to warbling cowbirds or to see a flock of phalaropes spinning in a pond, we view it all through the spotting scope of her remarkable prose. The poetry of the landscape and the birds become all one song. There is an intelligence and a clear and honest heart at the center of Kumar’s writing.”—James Ragan, author of The Hunger Wall

“You don’t need to be a birder to get caught up in [Kumar’s] story; be warned you will likely become one before you are through.”—Pete Dunne, author of Pete Dunne on Birdwatching

“[Kumar’s] prose flows easily, like a bird taking flight. A pure delight to read.”—Teresa Dovalpage, author of A Girl like Che Guevara