Rajpreet Heir

Assistant Professor, Writing
School: School of Humanities and Sciences
Phone: 607-274-3599
Office: Smiddy Hall 412, Ithaca, NY 14850
Speciality: Creative Nonfiction

Rajpreet Heir is an Indian from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her parents are from the Midlands of England and her grandparents are from rural farming villages in Punjab, India. She received her B.A. in English Writing from DePauw University and her M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from George Mason University, where she taught both literature and composition. Upon graduating in 2016, she moved to New York City and worked first for Getty Images and then TED Conferences.

Rajpreet has published nonfiction in both commercial and literary venues. Her essays often mix the personal with the political and approach difficult topics with humor, as in “Race at the Race: Being Indian-American at the Indianapolis 500” (Lit Hub) or “A Guy on the Subway Told Me I Didn’t Belong in This Country and I Told the Whole World About It” (Cosmopolitan). Rajpreet has also published many movie and book reviews. One review caught the attention of On Being Studios and they featured her on their This Movie Changed Me podcast. Many of these essays are part of a book-in-progress entitled Indian in Indiana.

Selected Courses

  • Personal Essay
  • Writing for the Workplace
  • Creative Nonfiction

Selected Publications

Media 

Publications

Professional Writing