Ms. Akshaya Ramanujam

Ms. Ramanujam is a Tamil American writer born in Chennai and raised in the Bay Area. As a voracious reader and a critical consumer of movies and TV shows, she knew from a young age she wanted to be a storyteller. 

After graduating from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, Ms. Ramanujam attended UC Davis. She took advantage of all the opportunities available there to explore different fields and career paths. She interned for the governor, wrote for the campus newspaper, worked as a calculus tutor, served on the leadership team of a national organization aimed at getting students more involved in public policy, and volunteered as a mentor for international students. Upon graduating with a degree in biology and an honors thesis on South Asian representation in the media, she worked as a tutor for several test preparation companies, even designing curriculum for one of them. 

During those years, she began to work seriously on several manuscripts and published her debut novel in 2022. In addition, she co-founded and contributed to a group blog about writing and publishing, and has served on the planning teams of several book festivals. 

She lives in California with an actual scaredy cat, and in her free time, she enjoys baking, traveling, and watching too much reality TV.   She looks forward to connecting with students by helping them share their stories through the college application process.