My Real Name Is Hanna, Tara's bestselling debut novel for young readers and adults set in WW II Ukraine, was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards and received the Julia Ward Howe Award for Young Readers, a Florida Book Award (YA, Gold), a Skipping Stones Honor Award, a Foreword Book of the Year Award (Historical, Gold), and it appeared on Shelf Unbound's 2019 Notable List, Goodreads' 2018 Ultimate Fall YA Reading List, and their Best of the Month Sept. YA list. Hanna also released in Slovakia and in Poland. She is working on a second WWII novel set in the States. Her forthcoming story collection, How We Disappear, releases Sept. 2022 and was selected for THE MILLIONS "Most Anticipated" Fall List.

AITL Media selected Tara for an Inspirational Woman in Literature Award. She is also editor of the acclaimed Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction and The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays. She founded The Best Small Fictions series.

Tara received an MA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College, has been widely anthologized, and her essays have been read on NPR and translated into dance.

Awards for her fiction include first place in The Ledge Magazine’s fiction contest, a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Lou P. Bunce Creative Writing Award, multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, and Best New American Voices and Best of the Web nominations.

Tara was the assistant editor for STORIES literary magazine, and a regular contributor to The Indian-American and Masala magazines. She lives in the wetlands of St. Augustine, Florida.