Journalist, activist, and artist, Sonali is the founder, host, and executive producer of Pacifica’s popular weekly program Rising Up With Sonali which airs on KPFK and KPFA and also as a TV show on Free Speech TV.
She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023) and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at YES! Magazine. She is also Senior Correspondent and Writing Fellow of the Independent Media Institute‘s Economy for All project and was formerly a weekly columnist at Truthdig. Sonali is also the founding Co-Director of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a US-based non-profit solidarity organization that funds the work of RAWA.
Her earlier book, co-authored with James Ingalls, is Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2006, Seven Stories). She lives in Pasadena with her husband and two sons.
In addition to her journalistic and political work, Sonali is also an accomplished artist and has won awards for her work and displayed her pieces at many exhibits. Her favorite medium is acrylic on canvas but she also dabbles in lino cut printing, wood burning, sewing, crochet, papier mache, soap making. She is also an avid baker and chocolatier.
She is a singer/songwriter and has performed with her husband James Ingalls at local coffee houses under the name “Love and Subversion.”
AWARDS:
2022 – Winner of Best National Political Commentary, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2017 – Winner of Best Election Related Political Commentary, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2015 – Winner of Best TV Anchor award, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2015 – Historian of the Lions award, Center for the Study of Political Graphics
2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – Finalist for Best Radio Anchor, Los Angeles Press Club Awards
2006, 2010 – South Asian Network Community Solidarity Awards
2010 – Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes Media Award
2004 – Phenomenal Woman Award, Cal State Northridge Women’s Studies Department
2004 – American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Media Award
BACKGROUND:
Sonali Kolhatkar was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Indian parents. She has two sisters. She is the granddaughter of the famed Indian independence leader and freedom fighter S. Y. Kolhatkar, who founded the Communist Party of India – Marxist.
In 1991, at the age of 16, Sonali left her family and moved to the United States for higher education. In 1996 she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Arts in Astronomy with Special Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1996 she obtained a Master of Science in Astrophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
From 1998 to 2002 she worked as an Applications Developer at the California Institute of Technology. In March 2002, Sonali changed careers and left astronomy to host a morning show on KPFK, Pacifica Radio. Watch Sonali’s TEDx talk describing how she transitioned from a career in Astronomy to public radio.