Hema Penmetsa (pronounced hay-ma pen-met-sa) grew up in India to bedtime tales of its queens, kings, and castles. Those stories made her young imagination fly out-of-bounds (which is a good thing to happen to a future storyteller!). A voracious reader, whatever else she was doing, part of her dreamed of the next book, the next favorite series she would discover. When she moved to the U.S. after college, she discovered a whole wider world and a heap of newer dreams—becoming a writer was one of them.

Hema loves both science and art. She has a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and a master’s in computer science. She enjoyed working as a systems programmer for several years before turning to storytelling. Hema speaks three languages—Telugu, English, and Hindi—and dreams fluently in many.

She lives in Texas with her family, locked in a perennial battle with the heat to keep her garden alive. As you may have guessed, gardening is another passion of hers. (It’s a good thing to be passionate about many things.) Hema draws inspiration for writing from her diverse cultural background as well as the day-to-day experiences of bringing up her two children and a cat.