Get to know the judging panel for Wattpad India Awards 2020:

Neil D'Silva is a well-known name on India's literary scene. His books cover dark themes of the supernatural and paranormal world. He is most known for his titles Maya's New Husband and Yakshini, both of which hit #1 on Amazon India (horror) and on Wattpad. 

Neil has scored three screen adaptation deals for his books. A popular face on multiple litfest panels, Neil has also spoken on the TEDx platform and mentors aspiring authors and conducts writing workshops. He is the founder of the litfest Litventure and is the President of the India Chapter of the Horror Writers Association.

Kanchana has been writing for almost 20 years. She began her writing career with The Statesman (Kolkata) & then with TOI (Hyderabad). She has written for numerous reputed publications in the country and with various MNCs & PR firms as a corporate writer.

In 2011 she founded an online company called Writeword and conducted online writing courses to help women learn the art of freelance writing.

– a dark and twisted thriller is her second book with HarperCollins. Her first novel – A Forgotten Affair – also with Harper Collins was published in September 2016.

Kanchana lives in Gurgaon with her husband, son & 2 dogs.

Roshini Dadlani commissions for the fiction and lifestyle list at Penguin Random House India, and her authors include Raageshwari Loomba Swaroop, Srishti Chaudhuri, Andaleeb Wajid and Shwetambari Shetty. She enjoys reading romance novels and self-help books in her free time.

Nayantara is an associate editor in the children's division at HarperCollins India. She previously taught English Language and Literature at a school in Singapore. She reads across a variety of genres, from YA and contemporary fiction to fantasy and twisty thrillers.

Aanchal Budhiraja is one of the winners of the Star Writers Program 2020 and trained under the industry's best screenwriters in Mumbai. She started her career as a Wattpad writer in 2014 and published various novels like Baking With Boys, The Demon Babysitter, One Of These Endings, and Illusion Of Love (Wattpad India Award Winner 2019). The Demon Babysitter was also adapted into a comic book. Her works have amassed more than 7 million readers worldwide.

She now works as a screenwriter for Indian Television on shows like Yehh Jadu Hai Jinn Ka and more up-coming shows for platforms like Sony, Colors, and Netflix.

Dyuti Mishra is a writer and editor with over a decade of work experience. Her work has been published in The Hindu, Vogue, GQ, Femina, The Bombay Review, Helter Skelter and many other publications.