Soman Chainani

Soman Chainani is a graduate of the MFA Film Program at Columbia University, and the recipient of the school's top prize, the FMI Fellowship for Writing and Directing. His short films, DAVY & STU and KALI MA, have played over 150 international film festivals, won over 30 jury and audience awards, and racked up over 1,000,000 YouTube hits. His writing awards include honors from Big Bear Lake, the Sun Valley Writer's Fellowship, and the coveted Shasha Grant, awarded by a jury of international film executives. He was also nominated for a NewNowNext Award, sponsored by MTV. Chainani graduated Harvard University summa cum laude, with a degree in English & American Literature. While at Harvard, he focused on fairy tales and wrote his thesis on why evil women make such irresistible fairy-tale villains, winning the Thomas Hoopes Prize and Briggs Prize for his work. Chainani's first novel, The School For Good And Evil, also the title of his trilogy, debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, has been on ABA's National Indie Bestseller List, has been translated into languages across six continents, and will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Studios. His second novel in the trilogy A World Without Princes, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List in April of 2014. He also made the list in 2015 with his title The Last Ever After.