Piyali Bhattacharya Named Abrams Artist-In-Residence in Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing

Piyali Bhattacharya has been named Abrams Artist-In-Residence in the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. Artists-in-residence are outstanding visual artists, musicians, writers, and other creative practitioners who work with students and faculty. Bhattacharya is a fiction and nonfiction writer whose short stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic, among other publications. She is the editor of the anthology Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion, which received an Independent Publisher Book Award. Her work has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Hedgebrook, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and ARGS. Bhattacharya holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A. from SOAS–University of London, and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was winner of the Peter Straub Award for Fiction. From the Kelly Writers House at Penn, she has also been awarded the 2022-2023 Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring. She is currently at work on her first novel.    

David C. Abrams, C’83, PAR’12, PAR’15, and Amy L. Abrams, PAR’12, PAR’15, established the Abrams Artists-in-Residence Fund at Penn Arts & Sciences in 2018. David is Managing Partner of Abrams Capital, LLC, an investment firm. He served as a member of the Penn Arts & Sciences Board of Advisors from 2010 to 2019. David and Amy have generously supported Penn Arts & Sciences priorities over the years.