Tina's mouth, filmmaker Keshni Kashyap's new book,

Keshni Kashyap's "Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary" Tina's Mouth – $20.00 per book About the Author Raised in Los Angeles, Keshni Kashyap studied literature at Berkeley and film at UCLA. Her films have been screened in more than forty festivals around the world including a short film at the IAAC Film Festival (now NYIFF). Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is her first book and a collaboration with Los Angeles-based Japanese painter Mari Araki. Kashyap lives in New York and is at work on two new projects. She is also an occasional contributor to the Daily Beast. Contact: Summer Smith Publicity Manager summer.smith@hmhpub.com From filmmaker Keshni Kashyap comes the story of a high school heroine—funny, wise, and reminiscent of Persepolis's Marjane Satrapi—negotiating an existentially trying spring semester at her Southern California prep school. Sophomore Tina Malhotra is a wry and endearing observer of the cliques and mores of Yarborough Academy and the foibles of her Southern California intellectual Indian family. After an English honors class assignment to keep an existential diary, she's on a first-name basis with Jean-Paul Sartre. She looks to the great philosopher for help when Alex, her best friend and longtime smart-girl ally, dumps her for a new group—with whom, per Tina, "Alex could discuss slutty clothes and cheesey poetry." Weekdays eating lunch alone on her Bench of Existential Solitude and a little nudge from her hippie teacher drive her to make decisions that will change the course of her semester—and lead her to her first “technical” and real kisses. Kashyap's smart and funny graphic novel illustrates the tricky world of high school while wrestling with those bigger questions. In TINA’S MOUTH, our heroine contemplates her place in the world, what a heavenly and mysterious expanse might be, and what it all means on her path to enlightenment—all before the spring formal. Keshni Kashyap is a filmmaker whose five short films have been screened in more than forty festivals around the world. She contributes to the Daily Beast. She lives in New York City. Illustrator Mari Araki, an artist and storyteller, lives in Los Angeles. TINA’S MOUTH by Keshni Kashyap Illustrated by Mari Araki Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publication date: January 3, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-618-94519-1 · $18.95 hardcover · E-Book ISBN: 978-0-547-60786-3