Preeti Shenoy

India's top-selling female author, Preeti Shenoy, meets BBC Arts Correspondent Rebecca Jones at Birmingham Literature Festival. She says her characters are mostly drawn from real life, as are their struggles. Her career began in 2006 in an attempt to cope with the grief of losing her father, starting with a successful blog and she went on to write eight best-selling novels. Her advice to aspiring writers is to read, read, read.