Shoba Narayan is an author, poet, podcaster and co-founder of Zapigo, an e-commerce platform in the celebration space. She is the author of eight books. As a  journalist  and columnist, she has written for national and international publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Travel & Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler,  The National Abu Dhabi, Hindustan Times, and Mint Lounge. Her writing covers travel, nature, culture, and food, winning a James Beard MFK Fisher Award for Distinguished Food Writing, and a Pulitzer Fellowship along the way. She loves Indian textiles, jewellery, perfumes, aesthetics, performing arts and crafts. She is a bird-watcher and hosts the Bird Podcast. She is co-founder of Zapigo, a Bangalore-based e-commerce startup in the celebration space. A published poet, she has won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry 2025 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. She serves on the board of Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography and Neev Academy. Her lifelong goal is to get fit without exercising and lose weight without dieting.

Shoba Narayan is an author, poet, podcaster and co-founder of Zapigo, an e-commerce platform in the celebration space.

She is the author of eight books. Her first book, Monsoon Diary: a memoir with recipes, was a finalist for a James Beard Award.

As a  journalist  and columnist, she has written for national and international publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Travel & Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler,  The National Abu Dhabi, Hindustan Times, and Mint Lounge. Her writing covers travel, nature, culture, and food, winning a James Beard MFK Fisher Award for Distinguished Food Writing, and a Pulitzer Fellowship along the way.

As a columnist, she has written weekly and fortnightingly columns for the last 22 years, for Mint Lounge; The National Abu Dhabi; Hindustan Times Brunch magazine; Hindustan Times, where she writes a fortnightly column; and Sommelier India, where she writes a column about wine.

She is obsessed with Indian textiles, jewellery and crafts, something that her family can confirm based on time and money spent on these pursuits. She founded and co-created two websites: Project LooM, about Indian textiles, and Jewels of India: about Indian jewellery.

She is most at peace within the lap of nature.  She is a bird-watcher, tree-hugger, and loves flowers, butterflies, moths, spiders, snakes and all types of flora and fauna.  To foster her interests, she hosts the Bird Podcast speaking about – and occasionally to – birds.

She is co-founder of Zapigo, a Bangalore-based e-commerce startup in the celebration space, because she figured, “Hey, if you’re going to work in tech, you might as well make it about Joy Together.”

She writes poetry when stuck in Bangalore traffic, and has won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry 2025. Her first poetry collection, Egress is not an Exit was published by Liverpool-based Erbacce Press.  One of her poems was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2026. Another was accepted into the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2024, which chooses the best poems from Indian writers.  Her poetry appears or will appear in Prairie Schooner, Frontier Poetry, Tiger Moth Review, Fairy Tale magazine, Southword, Marrow, Verseville, DMQ Review, Wild Umbrella, La Piccioletta Barca, Mukoli, Stillwater Review, Mantelpiece, Indian Literature, Seraphic Review, and others.

Her lifelong goal is to get fit without exercising and lose weight without dieting.