Shahana Dattagupta

Shahana Dattagupta (1974 - ) wishes to be the catalyst for the highest (creative) potential of others, to create a thriving world, one being at a time. She uses various mediums to this end: writing, visual art, music, theater, and architectural design. Shahana considers Seattle the place of her rebirth, and after a decade in her picturesque womb, 'home' has come to be associated with both India's vigorous monsoons and Seattle's incessant rain, both the lights of Diwali and the warmth of Thanksgiving, and both the Tricolor on August 15th and The Star Spangled Banner on July 4th. She still tears up inexplicably about the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. And she really does believe that Love is always the answer.

Shahana has written You Are Michelangelo...And You Are David, a book on the practice of creativity, Thrive! Falling in Love with Life, a collection of memoir essays, and Ten Avatars, a debut fiction collection exploring 'avatars' of womanhood through her transcultural lens. She is also co-founding-editor of the monthly 'zine Courageous Creativity, in which stories of courage, creativity and change from diverse contributors all over the world are curated. In 2004 she won the Archvoices international award for her essay "Touching a Single Life," which was later published in the 2005 Almanac of Architecture and Design.

Shahana was born in Pittsburgh, PA, of Indian scientist parents, and was later raised in various parts of India, including a yearlong stint in Germany. She returned to the U.S. in 1997 for graduate school in architecture and environmental psychology.