On her path to an award-winning debut novel, Chital Mehta has deftly navigated the stings of rejection and the emotional rollercoaster of publishing. Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Have You Seen Romit? was selected by R.O. Kwon for AWP’s James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel. Mehta will join us with acquisitions editor Courtney Ochsner and marketing and sales manager Rosemary Sekora to walk us through the book’s journey, including Mehta’s perspective on handling and learning from rejections.

As a case study of the path to publication, From Manuscript to Marketplace offers candid talks between an author and members of their publishing team about each step of the publication process: acquisition, editorial, marketing, and more.

About Have You Seen Romit?:  When her adopted son disappears into the forests of Southern India, Usha defies her husband, leaves the life she was given, and goes to find him—alone. Have You Seen Romit? is a story about a middle-aged Indian woman who sets out to find her son and discovers, in the searching, the full force of who she is. Read more at UNP.

A Q&A will follow the presentation; you can pre-submit a question when registering for the event. A recording will be made available for those who cannot attend live.

The event will take place via Zoom with automatic closed captioning. To request any other accessibility features, please email support@authorsguild.org and we will make every effort to accommodate.

Panelists

Chital Mehta is an award-winning South Asian writer whose stories center around motherhood, family dynamics, and immigration. She won the Boggs Fiction contest for her story, “Damaged Gifts,” and her story “The Weight of Happiness” was a Finalist for The Pinch Literary Awards. Her novel, Have You Seen Romit?, was the winner of the 2025 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, judged by R. O. Kwon. She lives in Delaware with her husband and children.

Courtney Ochsner is an acquisitions editor at the University of Nebraska Press. She acquires trade creative works, oversees the series-based poetry program, and manages the Backwaters Press annual poetry contest. She graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a BA in English and has worked in scholarly publishing since 2009.

Rosemary Sekora is the marketing and sales manager at the University of Nebraska Press. She has a bachelor of journalism degree and a master’s degree in English, both from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and started her publishing career as a book publicist in 2012. 

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