Jyoti, a story teller and writer since her young days, studied creative writing at Lehman College, which is part of the CUNY system in New York City. She worked as a technical writer and managed a publication department in a software company until she decided to get back to her true passion - writing and working with children.

She started Lekha Publishers LLC to market books for children. In addition to having received praise for the books and stories that she has published, she has also enjoyed being a mentor to middle and high school students. She did this as part of her duties as editor of a popular children's online magazine (now in print) and through YMCA Citizen Schools, where she led the “Write On” program for middle school students. She is now the editor-in-chief of the Balagokulam magazine, which focuses on Hindu children living outside India.

Lekha School of Creative Writing started as an experiment in the summer of 2006, when a friend asked Jyoti to guide her daughter and a few others in the art of writing. Jyoti’s experience that summer made her decide to start the writing school as a subsidiary of her publishing company. The workshop during the summer continued to grow into after-school classes and camps during President's week, spring break, and summer vacation. Over the past couple years, Lekha has brought on more experts in the field of creative writing to guide the increasing number of students.

In the past year, three of her students have won prestigious awards in story writing and other creative works. Tyler Sadoff, one of the first Lekha students, published his first novel, A Journey in Time, in October of 2009. Tyler wrote the first draft of his novel during two weeks of summer camp at the age of ten, and was thirteen when the final draft was published. Jyoti is also proud to announce that three of her other students are working towards publishing fictional works in various genres. Lekha KidsWrite.

All of our creative writing instructors have degrees in creative writing, English, or related fields, and are published authors or poets. All of our academic writing instructors have taught previously in other academic institutions. All of our illustration instructors are experienced artists. The one common thread among all these different instructors is that they enjoy being with children and they believe that children can do much more than what we give them credit for.

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