Reenita Malhotra Hora writes South Asian stories with gloriously flawed characters—the kind who fumble through messy families, buried revolutions, magical blunders, and cultural chaos. The kind you recognize. The kind you maybe are, on your worst and best days.

She writes with wit and wonder, and she does it across novels, screenplays, audio dramas—whatever medium will hold still long enough. History, humor, contemporary culture, and an unapologetically Indian soul, stirred together until you can’t resist taking a sip.

Her award-winning historical love story, Vermilion Harvest: Playtime at the Bagh, set against the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, clinched the Overall Grand Prize at the Chanticleer International Book Awards. That shelf of honors also includes the Eric Hoffer Book Award, IndieReader Discovery Award, Santa Barbara International Screenplay Award, Script2Comic, Launchpad, and Emerging Screenwriters. Her YA rom-com Operation Mom snagged a coveted second-round spot on the Sundance Institute Development Slate and a semi-finalist position for The Writers Lab.

Three of her projects are currently optioned for screen—including Shadow Realm, an animated fantasy spun from her Arka Chronicles series. The first two books, Ignition and The Final Countdown, fuse mythology, magical realism, and high-octane adventure through a distinctly South Asian lens. Think ancient gods, modern kids, and the kind of trouble that only happens when you mix the two.

She’s also authored bestselling nonfiction—Inner Beauty, Ayurveda: The Ancient Medicine of India, Forever Young, The Ayurvedic Diet. Her forthcoming memoir Ace of Blades (Jaico Publishing) slices into the extraordinary life of her father, R.K. Malhotra, pioneer of India’s razor blade industry. It’s an unforgettable saga of ambition, brilliance, family legacy, and the particular heartbreak of watching someone build an empire—and then lose the keys to it.

Her screenplays have been optioned by Worldwide Entertainment & Media, Sean Akers/Flmkr, and GBA Productions, and recognized by the Sundance Institute Development Slate, The Writers Lab, Austin Film Festival, CineStory (where she received the South Asian Voices Scholarship), Stowe Story Labs, and the Chanticleer International Book Awards.

Before all this, she was a journalist. Bylines in The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, Radio Television Hong Kong. She script-edited for National Geographic Kids, Cartoon Network Asia, and Disney India. LA Weekly called her a top indie writer redefining Indian culture and comedy for global audiences.

She hosts two narrative podcasts: True Fiction Project, where real stories morph into fictional retellings, and Shadow Realm, a mystical plunge into Indian myth and supernatural lore. Because why do one thing when you can do seven?

Up next: Festival of Lights (HarperCollins), a luminous children’s picture book that bridges Diwali and Hanukkah. Because some stories are about the light we share.

Across fiction, nonfiction, screen, and sound, Reenita’s signature is a bold voice, layered identity, and stories that refuse to play safe. She writes for the people who grew up between cultures, between expectations, between the person they were told to be—and the person they actually are.