Meet NewsMAKER Anuja Chauhan, the powerhouse writer, and former advertising executive, who succeeded in her mission to seize back her creative control. Born in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in 1970, Anuja spent a good part of her childhood moving from one cantonment town to the other due to her father being in the army. With a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Miranda House and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Mass Communication from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Anuja went onto working at JWT India for over 17 years. Here, she eventually moved up the ladder and to becoming Vice President and Executive Creative Director, having been the creative lead behind advertising campaigns like 'Dil Maange More' and 'Oye Bubbly!' But, something was missing. The importance of the story was inferior to the administrative duties that came with the role, and her penchant for the written word was far more important to her. And thus, she quit her job and wrote 'The Zoya Factor', which eventually became a film. After writing a second and a third novel, Battle For Bittora and The Pricey Thakur Girls, Anuja's work became some of the go-to reads of Indian fiction. Produced and Interviewed by Urmi Chatterjee Also See: The Author Who Redefined Indian Epics, Sitayana and Draupadi's Mahabharata