ABOUT CHAYA
Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a South Asian-American psychiatrist, poet, award winning fiction writer and essayist.
Chaya’s debut short story collection, White Dancing Elephants, received several honors and awards, including Finalist for the 2019 PEN American/Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction Prize, winner of the “35 Over 35” Debut authors, and winner of the Dzanc Books Short Story Collection (along with authors such as Laura Van Den Berg in previous years). Her short fiction has also been anthologized in Her Mother’s Ashes 2 (TSAR Press) and Best Small Fictions (Sundress Press) in 2019 along with work by Carmen Maria Machado and Ann Beattie.
Her work as a psychiatrist has been published in over 30 peer-reviewed medical journals and has received clinical research funding to develop effective treatments for trauma and its aftermath, from the National Institutes for Health/ Institutes for Mental Health. She has published several textbook chapters on the health and well-being of women and people of color (BIPOC patients) from diverse communities, including in Substance Disorders in Pregnancy, Guide to Bipolar Disorder in Geriatric Populations, and The Massachusetts General Hospital Adult Psychiatry Residency Handbook of Psychiatry. Chaya has specialized training in cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy and mindfulness training as well.
Learn more about Chaya’s highly acclaimed debut short story collection, as well as her writing journey.
Dr. Bhuvaneswar is currently accepting new psychotherapy and psychopharmacology clients. Learn more about her Mental Health Services.
Chaya Bhuvaneswar is available for workshops, lectures and speaking engagements. For a list of past and representative events, please visit her Events page.
TEACHING
In addition to writing and practicing medicine, Chaya also teaches creative writing and poetry to diverse communities.
Chaya has taught writing in many settings — as an Echoing Green Foundation fellow teaching literacy in public housing and shelters, as a Stanford Feminist Studies fellow teaching about women’s political and community organizing initiatives in South Asia at the graduate level, as a public health seminar leader including at the Harvard School of Public Health where she completed an MPH concurrent with her Stanford MD, and more recently, in creative writing workshops and by providing individual coaching.
She has given Grand Rounds and seminar presentations (on Narrative and Trauma) at Tufts University, The University of Chicago, The University of Illinois-Champaign, Brown University, Yale University Child Study Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
For creative writing (primarily short fiction writing) teaching, she has taught and lectured at Yale Summer Writing Seminars, University of Rhode Island Creative Writing, Columbia University MFA, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Grub Street Writers, Elgin Visiting Writers Series, Westchester Community College. Learn more about her Teaching Events.
PUBLIC HEALTH &
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
Chaya's background includes extensive work in public health and community organizing.
In Connecticut, she organized for the rights of homeless residents of New Haven to use public spaces, protest, demand equal access to literacy workshops and public libraries, and testified in front of Connecticut state legislature to continue and expand general assistance and other public benefits including for homeless men and women. She also worked with the Yale Afro-American Cultural Studies Center to pilot a literacy celebration of adults with new literacy skills (among over 40 million people denied these skills in the US in contemporary times including due to mass incarceration and other forms of violence and oppression).
Chaya’s work has been funded by the Carolyn Foundation, The Echoing Green Foundation, and Yale University on using poetry writing and creative writing to teach literacy in community settings. Her work in Family and Community Health at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health built on this experience, where for her thesis research, she did community outreach and organizing to increase homeless young adults, including LGBTQ communities, to have greater access to preventive and mental health care. She has remained connected to Health Care for the Homeless through years of follow up of this project, including by founding a resident clinic for homeless adults whom she served as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Chaya uses poetry and creative writing to teach literacy in community settings.
FOR FUN
In her spare time, Chaya loves to spend time with her loved ones (friends and family) and read prodigiously.
Chaya’s advice about reading : please read and celebrate diverse authors, especially if you are interested in writing or identify as a writer! Chaya also admires well-produced, sleek yet novelistic film and TV like Billions, Lupin, Bollywood productions, and any work of art, including films, about people and their families dealing with mental health issues. Check out her Recommended Reading List!
On running and celebrating our physical being: Chaya has been a runner since middle school and is also an avid walker and hiker. Some of her favorite places for hikes and walks are Magdalen Deer Park, the Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia, The Dish at Stanford University (where she ran all through medical school), and Jamaica Pond (where she went running frequently during psychiatry residency).
After her training, while pregnant, walks in Princeton were a highlight; other places she has since discovered include Acadia National Park for long hikes and returning to her favorite place to run and walk during high school track training, The Central Park Reservoir.
About running and walking Chaya says: Please do it! It is great for mood, sleep and the planet.