Rupa Jogani is A WRITER, Editor, Researcher, and baker based in chicago.

 
 

I am the author and creator of Neighbors: A Story About Food & Love, which happens to be my first foray into fictional writing since I was a literal teenager. I used to refer to myself as an Editor before writer, since I spent nearly the last decade as an Editor for publications like Toronto-based LYFSTYL, AniGay, and freelance editing. My prior skill set as a writer took on new shapes from extensive editing and helping other writers with their own work, and in those years I wrote and edited in a multitude of forms: Arts analysis, long-form personal essays, criticism, and now, long-form fiction. 


My interests lie in writing about mental health, analysis of media through a racial and queer lens, intergenerational culture and history, the impact of unseen trauma and chronic illness, and thorough dives into research on esoteric topics that happen to catch my eye. And, most recently, I decided to write and self-publish my first novel.

Aside from screen induced work, I am also a baker with a growing interest in researching (and creating) vegan and allergen friendly pastry, while also keeping an eye on global pastry trends.

 

Neighbors: A Story About Food & Love is my first novel which also doubles as a food blog. It is a story about two neighbors—Ren and Nico—who strike up a friendship by sharing food between their kitchen windows. I originally envisioned this story to be an animated television series, but due to numerous hurdles and the state of the industry itself, I tabled the idea for a few years. A conversation with one of my best friends and Neighbors collaborator (she creates the recipes for the novel), made me realize I wanted it to be in the form of a food blog, where every recipe is preceded by the next chapter of the story.

NEIGHBORS

2024 – Current

 

ANIGAY

2018 – Current

AniGay is a publication I co-founded with a couple of friends when we found ourselves wanting to consolidate and thoughtfully share the research and analysis on different anime we accumulated in various chats to something long-form. We spend a lot of time researching and dissecting queerness in Japanese literature and visual media, painstakingly reading through countless academic books and scholarly research to better understand the deeper world behind implicit queerness in anime. We all speak Japanese (to varying levels), and I continue to actively study and practice the language to further analysis and cultural understanding. AniGay covers a wide range of writing: Analytical pieces (including a long-running series I’m writing about Hunter x Hunter), impossibilities in translation, viewing guides, and myriad others.

 

LYFSTYL

2013 - 2018

I began as a staff writer for LYFSTYL, a Canadian based publication, in 2013. After cutting my teeth in the Chicago music scene as a music critic covering concerts and reviewing albums, I was promoted to Editor and expanded my coverage to include festivals like Pitchfork Music Festival and First City Festival. I focused on covering emerging, experimental electronic music, particularly from East Asia. Every year, the other editors and I would compile Best Of lists, and we’d try to highlight albums, artists, and record labels that didn’t gain as much press throughout the year but deserved recognition.

 

DESSERT FIEND

2020 - CURRENT

Dessert Fiend is the dessert-focused Instagram passion project I created after (many) years of friends and followers asking me to start a dessert blog. I wanted to focus on desserts and fine pastry I’ve sampled from around the world—both for reviews and as a recommendation guide—since I think about sweet things day in, day out. Some posts are about pastry I’ve tried, some that I’ve made myself, or even spotlighting global pastry trends and pastry chefs.

 

EASTCON PRESENTER

2013

Before I graduated from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I spent my final semester sharpening my undergraduate thesis which I presented at Princeton’s undergraduate academic conference, EastCon, titled, “The Effects of Plastic Surgery in the Korean Pop Music Industry: A Focus on Neoliberal Economics and KPop’s Future in the West.” With the research I’d compiled over the course of four years at university and encouragement from my advisor and professors, I wrote and edited this thesis over months, and even worked with relevant scholars across the country to ready it for presentation.

 

Much of how I’ve spent the last decade has been centered on healing: I’ve battled a collection of chronic illnesses and conditions that, for a period of years, had left me housebound. As I slowly healed—growing, learning more about myself, reaching understanding and acceptance—my writing and work evolved significantly. 


Everything I create is centered on this journey to heal, hold space, and to lend an ear or shoulder, for others on distantly similar journeys, too.