Hema Padhu is a Tamil American writer living in San Francisco.

Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Common, New Letters, Pinch, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere.

Her work has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 Narrative Fall Fiction Prize and has received three Pushcart Nominations. Her flash fiction has been performed on stage at Stories on Stage Davis in Davis, California.

She has served as a reader for The New England Review, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and The Sonoma County Writers Camp Fellowships.

She is working on a short novel and a collection of linked stories.