Usha Akella has authored eleven books, among them books of poetry Ants and Lotus (Kelsay Books 2026), Embayed (Dancing Girl Press 2025), and I Will Not Bear You Sons (Spinifex Press 2021), musical dramas the 2012 Ek, an English musical on the life of Shirdi Sai Baba produced in Austin and Houston, and a play on Mirabai The Way of the Storm in 2024. She was a finalist for Austin’s Poet Laureate in 2025. Three of her books are translated into Spanish, Romanian and Macedonian, and her poems have been translated into Turkish, Telugu, French, Hindi and more. She holds a Masters of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. She was selected as a Creative Ambassador for the City of Austin in 2019 & 2015.

Usha has been published in close to 150 literary anthologies and journals. She has featured at international poetry festivals in Romania, Canada, Slovakia, Nicaragua, Macedonia, Colombia, Slovenia, New York City, Hyderabad, and has won literary prizes such as the Poetry Society of India 2019 Commendation prize, Nazim Hikmet Award, Open Road Review Prize, Egan Memorial Prize. Her travel writings and nonfiction narratives have appeared in Parabola, Swagat, The Hindu, Amore, The Statesman (Kolkata), India Currents and more.

Usha is also the founder and director of Matwaala (www.matwaala.com) a South Asian diaspora poets’ collective launched in 2015. Highly regarded for its spirit of kinship, community and dialogue, Matwaala has collaborated with the Academy of American Poets, been featured in Poets and Writers, and won acclaim for its array of programming. Usha has also taught creative writing workshops for Transformation Language Arts Network (TLAN), International Women’s Writers Guild (IWWG), New York Public Library (NYPL), Writers League of Texas (WLT).