Milk Teeth establishes aerospace engineer Amrita Mahale as a prominent voice in Indian literature." The headline to an otherwise glowing review of the Mumbai-based author's debut in a leading daily last year, made all the right noises, except that it was clinging to a stereotype. Mahale gets this often. Since her JCB Award longlisted-book made it to the bookstores in November 2018, she has been called everything from a rocket scientist to an AI researcher and IITian. Writing is always seen as incidental, which she finds "amusing".

When you work in the sciences, but are also a storyteller, what would you be most remembered for? Russian-born writer Vladimir Nabokov will always be known for his literary masterpiece, Lolita. This, despite being an entomologist and butterfly evolutionary theorist of repute. Ohio-based nuclear radiologist and writer Amit Majmudar, whose novel Soar (Penguin Viking) released in February this year, would love that. "I am a poet, who is also a radiologist," he clarifies, in an email interview.