Sonora Jha, professor of communication and media at Seattle University, has received the 2024 Prize for Fiction from the Washington State Book Awards for her novel, The Laughter (HarperVia, 2023).
Dr. Jha joined the Seattle University faculty in 2003 as an assistant professor in the department of communication. Over the past two decades, she has held several roles with the university including chair of her department and associate dean for academic community in the College of Arts and Sciences. She also serves as the advisor for Seattle University’s student newspaper and director of a study abroad journalism program in India. Before her career in academia, she was a journalist in India and Singapore.
As a scholar, Dr. Jha’s research and teaching interests center around public affairs reporting, international journalism, persuasive writing and blogging, media literacy, and international cinema. In addition to The Laughter, Dr. Jha is the author of several books, including Foreign (Random House India, 2013) and How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family (Sasquatch Books, 2021).
Dr. Jha received her Ph.D. in mass media and politics from Louisiana State University.