Leeya Mehta has taught at George Mason since 2022. She is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in publications in the United Kingdom, India, the United States, and Austria. Her poetry collection, A Story of the World Before the Fence, is "a lush, lyrical study of memory and history,” writes Tim Seibles, former poet laureate of Virginia. In 2022, her work was anthologized in the Penguin Book of Indian Poets and in Future Work. Her novel, Extinction, is forthcoming from Simon and Schuster in 2026.
After spending a decade at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., Mehta is now the director of the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University. In 2024, Mehta received the Faculty Civic Excellence Award for her work within the classroom and the curation of the collaborative 13-month-long Baldwin100 project that celebrates the centennial of James Baldwin's contribution to the contemporary imagination. The project collaborated with 16 Washington, D.C., area organizations to produce 28 events and exhibitions featuring dozens of visual artists, musicians, and writers. The project received two American Graphic Design Awards, including for Nothing Personal: A Collaboration in Black and White, thanks to its partnership with Mason Exhibitions.
August 06, 2025