Archana Thapa Uprety is an independent scholar and the Founder-Director of Akshar Creations Nepal, a publishing house that focusses on gender as well as on non-mainstream genres and traditions. She has edited and published two collections of Nepali women’s personal narrations, Telling A Tale and Swaastitwa Ko Khoj, and she is working on the third collection. Her doctoral research is titled “Tracing Contemporary Gender Representations in Mainstream Nepali Cultural Texts”. She has published academic papers and articles in national and international journals and magazines. Thapa Uprety worked as the senior member of a team to draft a Five Year Strategic Plan (2014-19) for the National Women Commission, Nepal. At present, with two like-minded friends, she is leading Aawahan Group, an open discussion forum for positive change. Aawahan is based in Kathmandu and initiates monthly discussion programmes on literature, culture, and social issues.