All the Yellow Suns by Malavika Kannan

For her entire life, sixteen-year-old Maya Krishnan, an aspiring artist, has held her tongue against injustice. While she’s fiercely protective of her friends, immigrant community, and single mother, she knows better than to rock the boat in her conservative Florida suburb, Citrus Grove. Then Maya is invited the Pugilists: a secret society of artists, vandals, and mischief-makers who fight for justice at their school. Maya descends deeper into the Pugilists’ world of change-making and resistance. Maya confronts challenges in her own life —changing friendships, long-lost fathers, first loves, and budding queer sexuality — with newfound fire, accidentally torching a few things along the way. As she strays farther from the girl she used to be, she wonders if she'll ever be the same.

"An achy, stunning coming-of-age story about activism and identity, family and belonging." — Teen Vogue

“The protagonist’s passion, outrage, and longing are vividly expressed through ruminative first-person prose and sharp dialogue ... A turbulent and cathartic account of self-discovery, activism, and first love.”—Kirkus

"Malavika Kannan’s sapphic coming-of-age debut is beautifully heartbreaking." — Bookpage

"Debut author Malavika Kannan’s critiques of law enforcement, misogyny, and racism are astute, and Maya’s perceptive first-person narration is both polished and emotionally raw, making for a socially conscious self-love story about identity, family, and belonging." — Publisher's Weekly

"Maya is a dynamic character, full of the ups and downs of adolescence on the cusp of adulthood. The breakneck plot will grab readers, while Maya's personality will carry them to the end." — Booklist

Paste Magazine's Most Anticipated LGBTQ YA Books of Summer 2023

Finalist for the Northern California Book Award

Malavika (pronounced Mah-love-eeka. Take it slow, you've got this) is a Gen Z storyteller from Florida, based in NYC. According to men online she is a "young, perhaps talented woman," "liberal twig," and also "lazy, dumb, and loose," but she prefers to identify as an advocate for queer women of color, online and IRL. She's been featured by Seventeen Magazine, Good Morning America, and elsewhere, and she just graduated from Stanford University.

Her YA novel, All the Yellow Suns, is a queer coming-of-age story about activism and identity set in Florida, published by Little & Brown in 2023. Mal's also written about Gen Z and culture for San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Teen Vogue, and elsewhere. She draws viral cartoons about survivorship and identity.

On the digital side, Mal loves creative storytelling and community-building. She works in Gen Z digital strategy and posts about queer identity for an audience of 40,000 across Instagram and TikTok. Her villain origin story is that, as a teenager in Florida, she organized with March for Our Lives and the Women's March, and is forever committed to centering her people in spaces and movements for justice and joy.

about

words

Mal writes essays, reported stories, and fiction exploring themes of identity, race, gender, Gen-Z, politics, and culture. Here are some of her recent favorites.

cultural criticism

Teen Vogue: In Never Have I Ever Season Two, Flawed Brown Girls Are the Point.

Electric Literature: I Love Sally Rooney's Novels, But They Aren't Written For Me.

NYLON: When Will Women Get A Break from Hollywood's Serial Killer Obsession?

personal essays

Washington Post's The Lily: Centering my Female Friendships is a Feminist Act

HuffPost: How Having a Name That Nobody Can Pronounce Taught Me Who I Really Am.

Washington Post's The Lily: I'm Seventeen. Here's Why I'm Participating in the Women's March.

HuffPost: I Led My High School's Walkout to Demand Gun Reform. Here's What I Learned.

reported

Washington Post's The Lily: Interview with Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Star of Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever

San Francisco Chronicle: These Bay Area artists spent the past year creating. Now their pandemic babies are ready to be born.

Refinery29: How Youth of Color Are Reimagining the Anti-Gun Violence Movement.

San Francisco Chronicle: 'We're Playing the Long Game': Young Bay Area organizers see a society without police as their ultimate goal

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Indian Americans mobilize to send aid to COVID-affected families in India

San Francisco Chronicle: The COVID recession was harder on women. When will they rebound?

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Chinatown patrols met with hope, ambivalence amid attacks, bigotry against Asians

San Francisco Chronicle: Teens lead hundreds to rally against anti-Asian bigotry in Oakland

Stanford Daily: Inside the Weeks-Long Human Rights Strike at Stanford-Affiliated Hotel

Stanford Daily: With Campus Visits Cancelled, Minority Admits Struggle to Imagine Their Place at Stanford

Teen Vogue: For Pulse Shooting Survivor Stephanie Kersten, Dance is a Source of Healing

creative

Refinery29: Dear Mom and Dad (Slam Poetry performance with Saida Dahir + Sam Getachew)

Brown Girl Magazine: The Banyan Blooms (Short story)

digital storytelling

I'm a digital strategist passionate about telling stories online for a cause. As a content creator, I post a digital comic series about sexual assault survivorship, Diary of a Wimpy Mal, for an audience of almost 50k across Instagram and TikTok. I play around with commentary on politics, identity, and culture, and my TikTok videos have racked up nearly 1 million likes. My personal digital style bridges humor, vulnerability, and irreverence to speak to a Gen Z audience.

Professionally, I work as the digital strategist for Project Unloaded, a Gen-Z focused nonprofit combatting gun culture in teens. I'm responsible for conveying life-saving information about gun safety to 13-17 year olds scrolling on their phones. My portfolio below includes Instagram infographics, rapid clapbacks to moments in pop culture, explainer-style videos, viral TikTok trends filmed by teen creators I advise, and 30-second Snapchat ads that have reached 2 million teens nationwide.

My comic series, Diary of a Wimpy Mal, focuses on mental health and has received reposts from the likes of feminist activist Mia Khalifa.

I love a little vlog. Here's a behind-the-scenes video I filmed about my career as a novelist.

Brand awareness: I was the face of a campaign with Spotify for Asian American Pacific Heritage Month to uplift rising artists and creatives.

Instagram infographics: I specialize in breaking down complex topics, news stories and articles, and pop culture moments into digestible, colorful, and shareable graphics that tell a story and inspire a call-to-action. Here are some of my favorites:

Video storytelling: I love telling stories via video that feel like a FaceTime call with your friend. I also coordinate teen content creators to film videos as peer messengers. Here are some of my favorite video projects:

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contact me

malavikawrites [at] gmail.com

agent: Steph Rostan at Levine, Greenberg, Rostan