Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan

Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan ’02 never dreamed of being a rock star, an astronaut, or a firefighter. While other kids were still picking their noses, Ganeshananthan was already thinking about fiction.

When Ganeshananthan entered Harvard in the fall of ’98, she already knew she wanted to be a writer. This knowledged helped focus her academic career. “I wanted to write a creative thesis and the only way I could do that was in English, so I knew I wanted to be an English major and get certain grades,” she says.

Under the guidance of Professor Jamaica Kincaid, Ganeshananthan completed her creative thesis. Seven years and about 150 pages later, she turned it into her first novel, “Love Marriage.”

Before her career in fiction took off, however, Ganeshananthan became editor of her high school newspaper, and after enrolling at Harvard, she jumped right into The Crimson, rising to one of the top positions as Managing Editor. While Ganeshananthan always intended to become a novelist, her tireless work at the Crimson helped improve her editing skills.

“I knew that I wanted to be a fiction writer long before having any interest in journalism,” she says. “Journalism helped me to not be particularly touchy about [editing], because if it turns out better, then I’m the winner in the end.”

Prone to early starts, Ganeshananthan began conceptualizing the story that would become her senior thesis as soon as she arrived on campus.

“She actually essentially started her thesis freshmen year...it was something she’d had in mind for a long time,” says Emily J. Halpern ’02-03, Ganeshananthan’s college roommate. Yet come senior year, she was still making changes. “Sugi had more sleepless nights than anyone else I remember,” Halpern says.

As Ganeshananthan’s thesis advisor, Kincaid remembers a different aspect of her thesis process. “She’s a good writer; I was just sort of standing by,” Kincaid says. “You read, you make suggestions, and you correct, but in the end, it’s hers.”

After graduating from Harvard, Ganeshananthan went on to work at The Atlantic Monthly, returning to her budding novel after work each night. She then went on to graduate with an Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she received more feedback on her novel. Ganeshananthan continued to work with her editor and old friend, Rebecca Shapiro, and by its publication in 2008, the story had been transformed. “It was very, very different,” she says. One of the main characters in “Love Marriage,” the protagonist’s uncle, didn’t even appear in her thesis.

“I thought her thesis was wonderful and then I thought her book was wonderful,” Kincaid says, “but she grew as a writer and what she did in the book she couldn’t have done as a student.”

Ganeshananthan continues to develop her career, planning to begin a new job as Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in the fall and working on her second novel. “It will probably have some similar themes and concerns,” shey says, “but, again, I’m sort of just focusing on the getting actual machinery of the story working.”