Venita Coelho is an Indian writer, director and artist and currently lives in Goa. Coelho is credited with having made a mark for herself in children's literature, besides film and television.
After working in film and television for over a decade as writer-director-producer, she re-located to Goa. She is now the author of seven published books, including Dead As A Dodo, which won The Hindu/Good Reads award for best fiction for children 2016.
In films and TV
Her career in television started as an intern at UTV in Mumbai. She has since written, produced and directed shows. She quit her decade long career in television when the saas-bahu genre became dominant. Coelho has said, "I couldn’t bring myself to do that to other women. Put out as a role model a heroine who only suffers endlessly." She returned to television to work on the show, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin which ran counter to the dominant narrative style of television to tell the story of an ugly underdog. For Indian television her writing credits include the series Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuch Kaha, Amma and Family, Avishkar, Jungli Toofan Tyre Puncture, Trikaal and Head Over Heels. She has also written and directed telefilms -- Wild Rose, Picnic and The Lost Son. She gets co-writing credits on the Story/Screenplay for Musafir and the Adaptation and Screenplay credits for We Are Family. For Malaysian television she wrote Idaman. Her work for television in Singapore includes the telefilm, Angel, and the series Anything Goes, Rojak, Bold and Bollywood, Rehai among others. She has been Vice President, New Product Development at Sony Entertainment Television; Vice President, Fiction Content, Endemol India; Vice President, Fiction Content, Nimbus and Creative Head, Cinevistaas Ltd. Coelho has written the daily soap Trikaal and Karan Johar's adaptation of Stepmom, We are Family. She also wrote the script for Jassi Jaisa Koi Nahin in 2003.
The Washer of the Dead: A Collection of Ghost Stories, called "a ghost folklore from a feminist perspective". Recommended by Erica Jong as one of the ten best books on death and dying, this collection of feminist ghost stories was long listed for the Frank O'Connor award.
In art
Coelho works in oils and acrylics on canvas and glass. She held her first solo exhibition titled ‘The Naked Gaze’ in Goa in 2010.
She wrote a column for The Indian Express titled "The Tale of Two Cities" that covered the difference between lives in privileged South Mumbai and life beyond Bandra. Under the pseudonym "Hot Potato", she wrote a column for The Indian Express on the inner complications of working in the media. She wrote a series of short fictions in The Asian Age titled "Five Minute Fiction". Her column for The Herald in Goa was called "The Accidental Activist", and chronicled her challenges as part of the Goa Bachao Abhiyaan and the popular people's movement that protested a controversial Regional Plan for Goa. She is currently writing for film and television, and working towards an exhibition of her paintings.
