Cool headshot of me by Julie Zhu & Todd Karehana
Hi, Kia ora, Namaste (I only say hello like this when I am trying to virtue signal),
I am Ankita - a South Asian writer who loves genre-mash-ups.
I believe if you want to change people's minds, you have to touch their hearts. This is why the current focus of my work is making stories that are fun and accessible to a wide audience through humor and action while still containing important messages and themes.
My current thematic focuses are interculturalism, South Asian futurism, revisiting histories from the sub-continent and diaspora, and exploring "diversity within diversity".
I am pretty much a jack of all trades - so I am pretty competent writing on several subject matters and if I don't know something I know how to Google, talk to people, or look up a book in a library (yes Gen-Z know how to do that).
Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat or collaborate. I am probably just sitting at my computer with terrible posture not drinking enough water working on a script or funding application (definitely not doom-scrolling).
A S x
P.S. You can download my CV and dry bio below
Ankita Singh Bio 2023
Ankita Singh is a writer, documentary director and award-winning theatre producer raised between Chandigarh and Kirikiriroa. She can trace her ancestry to the Himalayan hill station of Ranikhet, Aligarh and pre-partition Lahore in Punjab.
Not long after completing her Master's in Screenwriting from AUT University, Ankita won the 2021 Piki Pitch. With a firm grasp for storytelling, Ankita has had a recent streak of successfully funded projects including being one of six teams creating a half-hour episode for TVNZ’s Motherhood Anthology and receiving a Seed grant in 2022 to develop her supernatural romantic-comedy feature film.
Ankita made history as the first South Asian female playwright to be commissioned by Auckland Theatre Company, NZ's largest and most established theatre company. Her debut action-comedy play 'Basmati Bitch' premiered at Q Rangatira - the season was extended twice due to popular demand.
She is currently developing her series with Piki Films and working on her next play - a horror magic-realist play 'RABID' through the Rocket Park Writers Lab 2023.
As a producer, Ankita specialises in discovering, developing and showcasing BIPOC creative talent in Aotearoa through her company Oriental Maidens. Notable works include co-producing 'Scenes From A Yellow Peril' with SquareSums&Co and Auckland Theatre Company, 'Nathan Joe: Homecoming Poems' (Toronto Queer Film Festival, 2022), 'I am Rachel Chu' (Auckland Fringe Best Newcomer Award, 2019), '800 Lunches' (Someday Stories, 2019) and 'First World Problems' (2018, 2019).
Oriental Maidens recently became a self-funded publisher, publishing the script of 'Scenes From a Yellow Peril' by Nathan Joe, adding this critical work to the Kiwi-Asian theatre canon.
Oriental Maidens recently became a self-funded publisher, publishing the script of 'Scenes From a Yellow Peril' by Nathan Joe, adding this critical work to the Kiwi-Asian theatre canon.