Center for the literary arts in New York State
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THE DARK SIDE OF OVER-ACHIEVING
Prachi Gupta
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
4:30 p.m.— Craft Talk / Q&A
7:30 p.m.— Reading/Conversation
Both events in the Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition.
University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12222 See map.
Prachi Gupta is the author of They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us (2023), a memoir about growing up in an ambitious Indian-American immigrant family; the pressures to over-achieve and belong; the special hell of the “model minority” stereotype; and the hidden shame of mental illness and personal trauma.
Gupta is an award-winning journalist and former senior reporter at the feminist news site Jezebel and co-host of Jezebel's former politics podcast, Big Time Dicks. She received a Writers Guild Award for her investigative essay, “Stories About My Brother”
which was also named one of the best essays of 2019 by Longform and Longreads.
Prior to Jezebel, Prachi covered the 2016 election for Cosmopolitan.com, where she "set the standard" for interviews with Ivanka Trump, per Media Matters; interviewed former First Lady Michelle Obama on her first solo trip to the Middle East; and traveled to Jordan to report on the refugee crisis. She has also written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. Her reporting on data privacy and discrimination for Marie Claire was included in 2021's Best American Magazine Writing.
Praise for They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us
“In this vulnerable and courageous memoir, Prachi Gupta takes the myth of the exceptional Indian American family to task. . . . [Her] resilience and her hope to be fully seen are an inspiration in both personal and political terms.” — The Washington Post
“I read it in one sitting. Wow. It aims right at the tender spot where racism, sexism, and family dynamics collide, and somehow manages to be both searingly honest and deeply compassionate.”—Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere
“In examining with boundless love the secrets and sorrows of one family, Gupta shows us the life-altering power of telling one’s truth.”—Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
Cosponsored by the Honors College at UAlbany, Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Writing & Critical Inquiry (WCI) Program.
(Photo credit: Sam Harding)