ABOUT

Hi. Thank you for visiting my website. My name is Thammika. 

I concurrently take two seemingly disconnected routes - one in the arts and the other in social impact creation. This puzzles some people, but to me, it feels natural. I reflect on feelings and I solve problems.

I write, I dance, and I do what I can in the worlds of scholarships, college access, and environmental sustainability. 

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In 2019, I began my M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. That same year, my novel was workshopped at Bread Loaf in Sicily, with Jennine Capó Crucet, who believed in me enough to nominate me for the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference. I will be attending BLEWC this year as a recipient of a Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship.

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Before writing full-time, I worked at a private foundation in Singapore and was an active member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community. My previous work included starting up a grants program, awarding money to direct practitioners tackling various issues across Southeast Asia.  I have also worked more on the ground with Raks Thai Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.

Currently, I serve as a volunteer mentor for Cameroon-based Misongi College Access Program, and am also an angel investor for Singapore-based Angels of Impact. The spirit of activism lingers in my writing and contours its questions and jabs. My forthcoming book is colored by the anger I feel towards the injustices that women face, as spouses and mothers. 

My mind is indebted to Williams College, where I graduated with Highest Honors in French Literature, the University of Pennsylvania, where I was a scholarship recipient at the Graduate School of Education, and the University of Texas at Austin, where I was a Graduate Fellow in Comparative Literature. My studies of the arts have been supported by grants, including from the Smithsonian Freer|Sackler Galleries.

I hold the French DALF C2 certificate and am now working towards the Japanese N1 exam. Knowing more languages expands what I know and how I know it. 

The fantastic Emmanuelle Grizot teaches me ballet. Adelene Stanley, who is equally a joy, helps me with Contemporary. The folks at JJ Dance Academy always get me excited for Samba. I've just finished filming a dance-theatre piece for Aude Gooly's exhibition at the Miaja Art Gallery, and am still in awe of the people with whom I worked.

My views, which I still stand by, are discussed in this interview by Baroque Lifestyle. For a sense of my writing, you can have a look at my publication on World Literature Today, here. Please feel free to browse the Dance/Movement and Writing sections of my website to learn more.

Thank you again for visiting.