Shiv Dutta is a writer, author, and thinker based in Texas. He has had essays published in Epiphany, The Evergreen Review, Silk Road Review, Pilgrimage, Eclectica Magazine, Front Porch, The Evansville Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern and other journals. One of his essays was nominated for 2013 Pushcart Prize. He is also the author or co-author of 45 technical papers and two technical books. By education and training, he is a physicist and computer professional, but his interest in literary writings goes back to his middle school years.

Shiv’s Journey

Shiv Dutta came to North America from India for postgraduate education in physics nearly 40 years ago. Until then, he had rarely left Darbhanga, his sleepy little hometown in Northern India, let alone left the country.

Despite an overwhelming interest in literary pursuits from his middle school years, Shiv’s schooling was in the physical sciences. The reason was simple: “It’s impossible to make a living being a writer,” his family had cautioned him. Although, as a kid, he participated in many literary competitions and wrote essays for local English magazines and newspapers, he never had the opportunity to have any formal training in writing, but he devoured books he could lay his hands on – Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Pearl Buck, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, P.G. Wodehouse and so on, sometimes finding parts of them quite abstruse. He waited for the day when opportunities would come along for him to formally pursue his literary interests.

After completing his degrees first in Canada and then in the U.S., Shiv didn’t return to India as he had originally planned. Instead, he joined the corporate world and worked for several engineering and computer companies in Canada and the U.S., but his literary interests never waned. He was already married and had a child. His family circumstances and the rigors of a fulltime job never allowed him to fully pursue his dream, but he made opportunities for himself and attended writing workshops and conferences whenever time and finances allowed. He also wrote personal essays and submitted them to literary magazines and has had some successes.

The sting from the literary bug gradually became unbearable for Shiv until he reached a point when everything else became irrelevant. He decided to leave the corporate world and quit his job of several years with a multinational information technology company to devote fulltime to slaking his literary cravings.

Shiv is currently writing a full-length memoir. It tells the stories of his early years in India, and the triumphs, tragedies and the challenges he faced in his onward journey after he reached the shores of North America.

Shiv now lives in Round Rock, Texas. Outside of his writing life, music and traveling keep him entertained.