Panel: Grotto Nights at the Library: A Conversation with Writers
Channel: San Francisco Public Library
Date: 2023-06-28

Louise Nayer and Saila Kariat: Searching for Home

Grotto Nights is a monthly series at the Library featuring The Writers Grotto members who will showcase and discuss their writing around a theme of their choice. This month features Louise Nayer and Saila Kariat on Searching for Home. The authors will discuss their work and invite the audience to participate in an activity related to the theme.

Louise Nayer has written six books, two poetry books, Keeping Watch and The Houses Are
Covered in Sound  and co-authored How to Bury a Goldfish about rituals for everyday life.
Burned: A Memoir was an Oprah Great Read and won the Wisconsin Library Association
Award. She is also the author of Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen. Her latest book is Narrow Escapes. Louise is a member of the Writer’s Grotto, a long-time
educator, retired City College of San Francisco professor and now teaches through OLLI UC
Berkeley and at The Grotto. She has done numerous radio spots, including on
NPR.


Saila Kariat, writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur pursued a career as an electrical engineer and builder while dreaming of writing and filmmaking. After obtaining her Ph.D. in electrical
engineering, Kariat worked as an engineer, manager and marketeer at IBM.


Kariat studied filmmaking at San Jose State University and was valedictorian of the class of 2008. Aftermaking several short films, she wrote, directed and co-produced the feature The Valley, the story of an Indian American entrepreneur seeking answers after the suicide of his daughter. The Valley was selected by over twenty film festivals and won best feature
film in four, notably being invited to the Mumbai Film Festival. Her current work is Jesus
Land, an adaptation of the NYT bestselling novel of the same name by Julia Scheeres.
She is in development on the movie based on the memoir.


Kariat has published many technical articles as a research staff member
at IBM T.J. Watson Research center. Her feature screenplays include Gods and
Demons, Love in the Time of Corona, Release and Gray. She has started writing
essays and short stories, a few of which have been published. She is a member of
The Writer’s Grotto, Film Fatales and SFFilm.