Kitsap County author Anjali Banerjee wrote her first story at age 7, about an abandoned puppy she found on a beach in Bengal. She has gone on to publish several novels and win numerous accolades for her writing, but her own life story would make a great book.

She was born in Calcutta, India to collegiate parents, who immigrated to Canada when Banerjee was 2. She grew up in Pinawa, Manitoba, which she describes as “an idyllic town on the shores of the Winnipeg River.”

Her favorite family event was going the local garbage dump every week to watch bears. When she was 4 the family adopted a little sister, Nita, a Native Canadian of Cree origin.

And, of course, she was a reader. Some of her early favorites were “Curious George” and “The Bear Who Couldn’t Sleep.” Her father fed her imagination every night with “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

She wrote her first mystery, “The Green Secret” at age 9.

“I illustrated the book, stapled the pages together and pasted a copyright notice inside the front cover,” she writes in her online biography. “After that I churned out a series of mysteries and adventure novels with preposterous premises and impossible plots. Then I put them away in a box and grew up.”

That process involved earning degrees in anthropology and psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and working at a wide variety of jobs/careers, from veterinary assistant to law student.

Fortunately for readers young and old, she returned to her love for writing fiction. Her short story “Ordinary Children” was nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. “Goddess of Learning” is in an anthology of immigrant writings and is required reading in some college classes.

She has written one young adult novel, “Maya Running,” with the sequel, “Looking for Bapu,” due out this fall. They were published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.

She has also penned two adult novels, “Imaginary Men” and “Invisible Lives,” which was released in September. They are both from Downtown Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

She is also a contributing writer for three regional history books and has written dozens of articles for Puget Sound newspapers.

She lives in Olalla with her husband, Joseph Machcinski, a retired Boatswain’s Mate from the USS Carl Vinson, “three crazy cats and a black rabbit named Frida.”

Her background makes her well qualified to lead the monthly Field’s End Writers’ Roundtable discussion on Oct. 17, with the topic, “How do you take your writing seriously?”

Banerjee was a workshop presenter at the first Field’s End writers conference in April, where she spoke on “Creating Believable Ethnic Characters.”

The Writers’ Roundtable takes place 7-8:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Bainbridge Library, 1270 Madison Ave., Bainbridge Island. The guest author introduces the discussion topic, then participants join in a question and answer period followed by a large group discussion. The monthly event is free and open to writers of all skill levels and interests.

For information on other Field’s End offerings visit www.fieldsend.org.