What inspires you to write?

The beauty of words and then the blending of that beauty of words into a life-giving line inspires me to write. It often has that call of the soul effect on me that at times the holistic approach of the writing process itself inspires me to write. My writing process is fairly simple and finely complex. I construct and destruct words around a solid thought and then sculpt the whole poem word by word, line by line, and sometimes stanza by stanza. Creative writing is how deliberately you write and rewrite the thoughts and then how decisively you arrange and rearrange the concepts and how delicately you refine them.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

To be as honest as possible, when my first book When the Mystic meets a Starfish came along, I did consider myself a full-fledged writer. Because then you have this writer’s and an author’s sense of self within you where your work is in an actual book. All else before that is merely a mirage where you think you are probably or maybe a writer but your work in a published book seals the definitive part of it.

Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?

I am a poet and I write poetry. Now why did I choose to write poetry that is similar to the question why I chose to breathe. Indeed, poetry feels like breathing. Poetry is that panacea that heals the hazardous and haphazard, horrendous, and most haggard heart of anyone’s. Poetry is the beauty of the world that is limitless, infinite, and intricate weaving of the world that oftentimes transcends the spacetime. So, for all the cause that is colossal, I chose my genre which is poetry.

What is the biggest thing that people THINK they know about your subject/genre that isn’t so?

People think they know poetry and that it is something you write with your heart, or you can arrange some words and adjust a line or two there. For many people, poetry is either a luxury or a therapy. They see it so binary but what they don’t know is the power of poetry and how it can actually help build your resilience, virtue, and overall well-being.

What have you written so far?

I always have been fascinated with learning new words, ideas, perceptions, and ancient wisdom, and how they form our inner and outer world. I just recently a few years back started writing and have authored two collections of poetry. My first book is When the Mystic meets a Starfish, and my second book is Caravan to the Cosmos. Both books are enriched with poetic wordplay and pioneered with the interconnectedness of human emotions and nature’s elicitations.

How do you market or promote your books and what strategies (e.g. social media, email, blog tours, etc.) have demonstrated the most success for you?

I have promoted myself on every platform I come across. There is one strategy for successful book marketing that I would like to share here: be as authentic as you are, connect to your readers more, and tell them what was needed for you to create this book, and in what good way your book will impact their lives. Show them your raw and genuine self-authenticity towards your work and towards serving humanity through literature.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Never tire yourself out of writing, learning as well as thinking.

Be consistent and persistent in recognizing and rendering the artistic sense.

Be mindful and at the same time prompt in picking the hints and clues, truths and untruths.

Be ever present to beckon the guiding of the Universe.

Can you share with readers a little bit about your latest book?

My latest book is Caravan to the Cosmos, a mélange of melodic poems rendering the philosophy of the cosmos and its harmony. While taking a stroll through the poems, it would feel as if you are traveling through the ocean crust and experiencing outer space. The atoms of each poem beautifully blended over the panorama of the galactic peripherals. The scales of the rhapsodies are encompassed around the stratosphere, where you have the stronghold upon the gravity of the acrostic dimensions. The stems of the literary compositions in this poetry collection are resplendently engraved in theology, science, psychology, mythology, history, geography, philosophy, literature, art, and medieval and renaissance discoveries.

What made you decide to sit down and actually start writing this book?

I am an intuitive versifier and artistic idealist. Empowering people through the magic of words is my mysticism. Everything fascinates me and this fascination with every living and non-living entity of this universe persuaded me to write my books that are filled with the knowledge of known and unknown subsistence and their cause and effect on our mundane lives in many magnificent ways. My latest book is Caravan to the Cosmos, and the name of the book itself directs the theme of the book as it is vastly inspired by the structure and fracture of one’s inner being in accordance with the underlying resemblance of the metaphysical and cosmical build and tear of one’s outer being. When the Mystic meets a Starfish, as the title suggests, is encompassed with mystical poetries imbibed with the salutation of permanence and the admiration of impermanence.

Who are some of your favorite authors that you feel were influential in your work?

I have been influenced by the most celebrated writers like the Sufi scholar and mystic Rumi, Rabindranath Tagore, Charles Bukowski, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Emily Bronte, Kahlil Gibran, Agha Shahid Ali, and such.

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