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Sarah Thankam Mathews
Sarah Thankam Mathews is an Indian-American author, novelist, and organizer. Her debut novel, All This Could Be Different, was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction. Personal lifeMathews was born in Bangalore, India to Malayali parents.[1] Her parents quickly moved with her to Muscat, Oman where she was raised in a tight-knit Indian enclave.[1] She moved to Wisconsin with her family when she was 17.[1][2][3] She attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,[4] where she served as president of the Wisconsin Union Directorate in 2012–2013.[5][6] She lived in Milwaukee from 2013–2014.[7] Mathews began her career in progressive politics at a public-affairs firm in Washington D.C.[8] She quit her job to pursue an MFA in writing.[8] After receiving her MFA, she worked many freelance jobs in New York City, including in graphic design, web design, project management, freelance writing, and as a personal assistant.[8][9] She lost work and income when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, causing her to go on unemployment and putting her process of becoming a naturalized US citizen at risk.[8] It was during this time that she wrote her debut novel and began a mutual-aid organization—at the same time.[8] She currently lives in Brooklyn and considers Kerala to be her ancestral home.[1] Writing careerIn 2020, Mathews was a Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and a Rona Jaffe Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.[10][2] She also received The Best American Short Stories 2020 award.[11][10] She worked on a novel for seven years—which she used for her MFA thesis—and ultimately put it aside.[8][1] She now calls it "Novel Zero."[1] The next novel she worked on, All This Could Be Different, became her debut novel and was published in 2022.[8] All This Could Be DifferentIn 2022, she published her debut novel All This Could Be Different. The novel was received with critical acclaim and was a finalist in the 2022 National Book Awards.[2][12] Mathews did not receive the award, which has never been won by a South Asian author.[1] The novel centers a South Asian queer protagonist who is navigating love, friendship, and career in Milwaukee during the Great Recession and the Obama presidency.[2][13][14] Elements of it reflect the author's own life as a queer South Asian immigrant to the US.[15] Mathews began writing the novel in the summer 2020 when she was 29 years old and surviving on unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] She wrote it at the same time that she was launching a mutual aid organization called Bed-Stuy Strong.[8][1] She completed the novel in 4 months, found an agent in November 2020, and sold it at auction.[8][1] OrganizingDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Mathews helped to create Bed-Stuy Strong, a grassroots mutual-aid organization that raised $1.2 million to serve its Brooklyn-based community.[10] She came up with the idea when talking with her neighbor, a native of Bedford-Stuyvesant while COVID-19 cases and quarantines were just beginning to spike in the US.[8] She began organizing by creating a Slack network which she marketed through neighborhood flyers.[8] The organization ultimately helped 28,000 people living in Brooklyn who were suffering from food crisis during the pandemic.[10][1] The organization's primary aid service was grocery delivery.[10][1] Published works
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