Athena Kashyap was born in India, where she spent her childhood in the then idyllic small town of Bangalore among frogs and trees, and her adolescence and young adult years in Bombay. She received her BA from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, her MA from the University of California at Davis, and her MFA from San Francisco State University. She currently makes her home in Bangalore along with her husband and two girls, after living twenty-two years in the U.S.
A poet who writes primarily in English, Athena is also fluent in Hindi. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Crossing Black Waters (SFA Press, 2012), Sita of the Earth and Forests (SFA Press, 2014). She has been invited to read at numerous literary festivals and organizations both in the U.S. and India.
She is also active as the primary editor for Poetry Across Borders, an online journal hosted by Jaaga, Bangalore, that features poets from across the world and India, and is also an editor at Virtual Artists Collective.
As a teacher of creative writing, she has taught at University of California at Davis, City College of San Francisco, Jaaga, and Azim Premji University in Bangalore. She currently teaches poetry at Azim Premji University in Bangalore, and holds monthly creative writing workshops at Jaaga, Bangalore.