Born in small-town Oklahoma, Indian-American essayist Kirtan is now a practicing hematologist and oncologist near Houston, TX. Recently awarded a full scholarship in non-fiction for the 2022 Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and a 2023 residential fellowship from the Ucross Foundation, he has published work in Guernica, Electric Literature, Crazyhorse, The Southern Review, Boulevard, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and has been featured in popular venues such as Longreads, Longform, and the Memoir Monday newsletter. His essays have been recognized as notable on multiple occasions by the Best American Essays series, and Gettysburg, initially published in Guernica, appears in the anthology South to South: Writing South Asia in the American South, published this year by the Texas Review Press.