About Asha

Asha Rajan is a South Indian (Malayalee)-Australian writer and editor who lives and creates on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar, land which was never ceded. She acknowledges with respect the elders and custodians; the first storytellers, songwriters and poets of this land.

Asha was a Contributing Editor at the online writing community, YeahWrite and a judge for various Super Challenge competitions. Asha was an editor at the online literary micro-essay blog, Dead Housekeeping, from January 2015 to May 2020. She became the Managing Editor at Dead Housekeeping in May 2020.

Asha is also a freelance editor who’s interested in a wide variety of editing projects.

In the Works

Snippets of what I’m currently working on

artwork by @auntyverses

Publications

Prizes

Stuart Hadow Short Story Prize 2023 (second place) | The Masters Review Reprint Prize 2023 (longlist) | The Ros Spencer Poetry Prize 2023 (accepted for publication in Brushstrokes IV) | Marj Wilke Short Story Award 2022, Women Writers Queensland (highly commended) | Society of Women Writers WA: Bronze Quill Award 2020 (winner) | Heroines Women’s Writing Prize 2020: The Neo Perennial Press (highly commended)

In Person

Upcoming:

The Mothers are Back!

From lullabies to empty nests, The Motherhood Collective brings five poets together to explore the wild, tender, hilarious and heartbreaking realities of motherhood with poetry, performance, laughter and tears–with Deconstructing a Lullaby by Lakshmi Kanchi. This is Poems from the Nest!

When: Sunday, 8 November 2026, 3.00pm to 4.30pm

Where: AH Bracks Library + Creative Space

Cost: FREE, bookings essential (click the link to book)

Past:

The Motherhood Collective presents Poems from the Nest [September 21, 2025 Midland Junction Arts Centre | Perth Poetry Festival: Grains of Sand (Still Here, Still Talking) [August 30, 2025] City of Perth Library | Perth Poetry Festival: Launch of Imagik by Lakshmi Kanchi [August 30, 2025] Perth Poetry Club (Moon Café) | Hakaya of Home Fremantle [June 15, 2025] Ode to Sirens | Perth Storyfest [April 6, 2025] The University of Western Australia | Woman Scream 2025: Not a Game [March 15, 2025] Lawson Flats | Creative Connections Exhibition [October 4, 2024] The Foyer at The Rise | M/Other Tongue September 28, 2024] Blue Room Theatre (Studio) | Writers’ Collective Launch [September 5, 2024] The Blue Room Theatre (Kaos Room) | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Micro/Flash Fiction [August 2024] | Grains of Sand: A Multicultural SoireeAugust 24 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm WAPI Perth Poetry Festival | Pen Perth: Reading Secular India [July 27, 2024] | Iinji Film Festival: The Hardest Line (An Iinji Fundraiser) [July 20, 2024] | Centre for Stories: Onion or Ogre: Layers of Complexity Short Story Workshop [July 18, 2024] | WA Poets Inc., Grill’d to Perfection: Poets in Freo (A WA Poets Fundraiser) [April 23, 2024] | St. Catherine’s Writing Retreat, Society of Women Writers WA: Building an Online Profile [April, 2024] |Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Building an Online Submissions Profile [February, 2024] |Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Shut Up & Write x2 [October, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Very Short Stories [September, 2023] | Coffee, Grief & Gratitude: Grief is Love Episode 12 [July 4, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Grief Writing [April, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Shut Up & Write! [March, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Writing Towards Publication — Introduction to building an online writer’s submissions profile [February, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Interviewing Shirley Eldridge ‘Basic Psychology for Writing Characters’ [February, 2023] | Coffee and Grief: Coffee Talk #39 (recorded reading) [October 6, 2022 10am AWST (UTC+8)]. Read the text of this essay here. | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Interviewing Loretta Tolnai ‘Writing Childhood Memoir'[February, 2023] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Flash and Micro Fiction [September/October, 2022] | YeahWrite Scarlet Quill Society: “Sensitivity Readers” (panel discussion – recorded) [July, 2022] | Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Creative Non-Fiction (workshop/class) [June, 2022] | Death Rattle: “Literally Crawling” (poetry reading) [November 5, 2021] | Unchaste Readers: Unchaste Variety Show (poetry reading) [May 29, 2021]