What drew you to the historical romance genre?

I really started writing historical romance because it is what I like to read for fun. Starting from middle school, all through high school, college. When you’re in school, you’re reading these hard books all the time for English classes, and I wanted something enjoyable and relaxing, and that’s what I always turn to. And so I think it’s just natural that that’s what I would turn to when I decided to write. It’s really as simple as that.

The titles in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series.

You’ve spoken about how you were not an overnight success. How did you overcome self-doubt?

In my family, my background, like it is in Indian culture, higher education is very much prized. All of my friends were getting graduate degrees and I was very concerned that I wasn’t qualified to do anything. What if writing didn’t work out? I didn’t have a medical degree nor a law degree nor a business degree. And so I just kind of panicked. I went to medical school for a few months, and that’s when I really realised, it wasn’t the right thing for me. I really preferred being a writer and I felt that I could make it work and make a living. I don’t think I thought it was going to be like this, but I believed I could make a decent living, and I did. And so it was really nice.

The cast of ‘Bridgerton’ with author Julia Quinn (fourth from right) London, 2024. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

How did the Bridgerton adaptation and all the recognition that came with it change your life as an author?

The biggest thing it changed is that it’s allowed me to slow down. You know, for many years I was writing on average one book a year or even more. And now I don’t have to do that. And it’s pretty nice, especially because I’m in my 50s now and I’m eager to try some new things. So I’ve actually been spending a lot of time doing more work with political activism and philanthropy. And that’s been very gratifying.

Can you tell us more about that?

I became the first ever national ambassador for a group in the United States called EveryLibrary. It is the only non-profit in the nation geared toward mobilising voter support for public and school libraries and it started out by helping libraries raise money and navigate tax issues. And unfortunately, they’ve had to take a sharp turn recently into fighting book challenges and book bans in the United States, which is something that’s happening more and more often, and it’s absolutely appalling.

I spent about 18 months crisscrossing the country, speaking at libraries; they invited me because of Bridgerton, and they got Bridgerton talk, but they also got talk about book bans. I think a lot of people in the U.S. don’t even realise that this is happening. All of my speaking fees during that time was donated to libraries. I was able to raise about $100,000 for this cause.

More recently, I’ve become a goodwill ambassador and board member for an organisation called Landesa, which is an international non-profit that focuses on land reform and land rights for the rural poor. They are starting their work in Sri Lanka soon, but they have a huge footprint in India. And they do a lot of work helping people in India secure rights to their land. It’s an incredibly important issue because, the way I try to explain it to people is, there’s that famous saying, ‘if you give a person a fish, he’ll eat for one day. If you teach a person to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime’. Landesa wants that person to own the pond. So then they can pass that pond on to their family and create generational wealth. It’s been an honour to be working with them.