Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning and bestselling author, screenwriter, journalist and speaker. 

Recognised as one of India’s best writers by multiple national and international publications, Pant has published eight books to critical and commercial acclaim. These include BOYS DON’T CRY (Penguin Random House, 2022), THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, VERY BAD GOOD NEWS (Penguin Random House, 2021), HOW TO GET PUBLISHED IN INDIA (Bloomsbury, 2019), FEMINIST RANI (Penguin Random House, 2018), THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN (Juggernaut, 2016), HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Random House India, 2013) and ONE & A HALF WIFE (Westland, 2012). Several of her works are under screen adaptation, including BOYS DON’T CRY and THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, VERY BAD GOOD NEWS, as well as a few other screenplays that she has written.  

Pant has been felicitated with various honours and shortlists for distinguished contribution to literature, gender issues and journalism, including the Bharat Nirman Award, Laadli Media Award, FICCI ‘Young Achiever’s Award’, The Lifestyle Journalist ‘Women Achiever’s Award’, FON South Asia Short Story Award, Muse India Young Writer Award, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Frank O’Connor International Award and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.  

Her short stories have been published in over a dozen international literary magazines, including Avatar Review, Wasafari, Eclectica, The Indian Quarterly and QLRS, as well as in several anthologies including Namita Gokhale’s THE HIMALAYAN ARC, where her story Boongthing was critically praised by The Hindu, Telegraph, Business Standard and Hindustan Times. 

She has written over a hundred articles for international and national media houses, like the Times of India, Hindustan Times, DNA, MidDay, The Asian Age, Mumbai Mirror, Tehelka, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Verve, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Man’s World, Little India, South Asian Times, India Today, Scroll, Firstpost, The Huffington Post, DailyO, Dainik Bhaskar, and BuzzFeed, among others 

Pant is a vociferous feminist and advocate of gender equality. She curates a popular monthly panel discussion on feminism in Mumbai called ‘Feminist Rani’, and interviews India’s leading opinion makers and change leaders from Shobhaa De to Chanda Kochhar to Kalki Koechlin to Deepa Malik on online shows like She’s The Boss (Firstpost), First Lady (Firstpost), and Get Real (SheThePeople.TV). She has spoken out against domestic violence in her TEDx talks.  

Pant is also known for having abridged the world’s longest epic, The Mahabharata, into one hundred tweets that The Guardian (UK) quoted as ‘wonderfully descriptive and paced’. 

Pant has been invited as a speaker for many of the nation’s biggest literary festivals and conferences, including TEDx, Jaipur Literature Festival, Times Lit Fest (Delhi & Mumbai), Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Pune International Literary Festival, Lucknow Literature Carnival, Think Literature, Litomania, Chandigarh Literati, Odisha Literary Festival, Hyderabad Literary Festival, Kumaon Lit Fest, Dehradun Literature Festival, Mood Indigo, TISS Literature Festival, Cuttack Lit Fest, LitOFest, Festivelle, Global Shapers Community, Women Writers Fest, Litomania, Young Makers Conclave, #RiseWithTwitter, Rotary Club, The Feminist Conference (UN Women), PEN and She Leads India. 

She is a regular panelist at prime time news channels like Times Now, NDTV, CNN-IBN and India Today TV, and international channels like DW News (Germany) and CGTN (China). She also conducts motivational talks for underprivileged girls. She has been associated with the Avanti Young Women Leadership Program, The Blue Ribbon Movement, Kehkasha 2017, Srujna Sheroes and served as a mentor for Sheroes and Vital Voices (a woman empowering initiative by Hillary Clinton).