Supriya is an award-winning author, illustrator, and screenwriter who grew up in the Midwest, where she learned Hindi as a child by watching three Hindi movies a week.

Honored by the Michigan Congress on the House floor for her contributions to children’s literarure, Supriya has worked on the writing teams for several Hindi films, including Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Eklavya: The Royal Guard, India’s entry into the 2007 Academy Awards.

Supriya’s books include international bestseller, AHIMSA, THE MANY COLORS OF HARPREET SINGH (Sterling, 2019, illlustrated by Alea Marley – the 2021 Michigan Great Read), AMERICAN AS PANEER PIE, a School Library Journal Best Book of 2020, (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster, 2020) STRONG AS FIRE, FIERCE AS FLAME (A 2022 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Book, 2022 Global Read Aloud Selection, and Read Across America selection, Tu Books, 2021), BINDU’S BINDIS (Sterling, 2021, illustrated by Parvati Pillai), THAT THING ABOUT BOLLYWOOD (Simon and Schuster BFYR, 2021 – a Parents Magazine Best Book of 2021), BROWN IS BEAUTIFUL (FSG, 2022, art by Noor Sofi), MY NAME (FSG, 2023, art by Sandhya Prabhat), and THE COBRA’S SONG (Simon & Schuster, 2023). She is the illustrator of Jyoti Rajan Gopal’s AMERICAN DESI (Little, Brown, 2022) and Raakhee Mirchandani’s MY DIWALI LIGHT (Little, Brown, 2022), and the author-illustrator of AND YET YOU SHINE: THE KOHINOOR DIAMOND, COLONIZATION, AND RESISTANCE, which Booklist calls “a gem not to be missed” in a starred review. (Candlewick, 2024). Supriya is represented by Kathleen Rushall at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and Kim Yau at Echo Lake Entertainment for film/TV rights.

Follow Supriya on X/Twitter @supriyakelkar_, on Instagram @Supriya.Kelkar, and on TikTok @supriya.kelkar .

How to pronounce my name:

(SU-pree-yah KEL(rhymes with “hail”, the “l” sound is a Marathi letter made by rolling your tongue to make an “rl”)-kuhr)

I love to hear from readers! You can send me a message here.

Interested in a school visit? You can fill out my form on the School Visits page of my website.

(I had to update my old author bio.)