As a girl, Venkatraman was discovering the power of compassion. And while her early passions were science and math, literature pulled her in, too.

“I wrote because words were magical to me,” she said. “The first time I saw writing it made sense to me. The fact that these little black marks on paper could transport you and transform you and make you speak to somebody whom you didn’t know, make you go back in time – time-travel – that was fascinating to me.”