Born in small-town Oklahoma, Indian-American essayist Kirtan Nautiyal is now a practicing hematologist and oncologist near Houston, TX. His work has been published in Guernica, Electric Literature, Crazyhorse, The Southern Review, Boulevard, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and has been featured in popular venues such as Longreads, Longform, and the Memoir Monday newsletter. His essays have been recognized as notable on multiple occasions by the Best American Essays series, and “Gettysburg”, initially published in Guernica, appears in the recent anthology South to South: Writing South Asia in the American South. With generous support from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Ucross Foundation, and Millay Arts, he is currently at work finishing a collection about spirituality and the search for home.