Selma Carvalho is a prize-winning British Asian writer and author of three non-fiction books documenting the Goan presence in colonial East Africa. Her poetry and fiction have been widely published. She has placed in numerous contests including Mslexia, Fish, Bath, Brighton and London
Short Story. Selma won the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize in 2018 and her collection of short stories was longlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. Her novella Sisterhood of Swans is forthcoming from Speaking Tiger.
PENGUIN: A FLIGHTLESS MIGRATORY BIRD follows a woman living in the desert protected from crime, war, famine and disease. The only thing she is asked to sacrifice is her selfhood. Self-censure is the cruellest form of death is what she discovers as she grapples with an unplanned pregnancy.
To find out a little more about her work, we asked Selma the following questions…
What inspires your work?
The human condition and the relationships it weaves.
Tell us a bit about your writing process…
I write when I feel the creative urge but I do make it a point to write every day. I also run a journal, so on days when the words don’t come, I work on editing other people’s writing for the journal.