Aditya Tiwari
Aditya Tiwari is an Indian poet, writer, and LGBTQ rights activist.
Life
He was born in Jabalpur, India and completed his primary education at St. Aloysius Senior Secondary School. He then attended the University of East Anglia and received a Master of Arts in Journalism.In Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace, Parmesh Shahani wrote about meeting Aditya in 2019, describing him as a “young openly gay poet” from Jabalpur whose family’s acceptance empowered him to create “his own queer-friendly universe.” Shahani also noted his debut poetry collection, April ''is Lush, which was published in 2019. Aditya's poetry and activism received wider attention in 2021 when GQ included him among "5 Indian Instagram poets" weighing in on creativity amid the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting his focus on queer experiences outside metropolitan cities. In 2023, he was featured in Cosmopolitan's "The Ones to Watch" issue, where he discussed growing up queer in a small town in India and the importance of representation for non-urban LGBTQ+ voices.
In 2023, Aditya's anthology Over the Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes was published by Juggernaut Books during India’s marriage equality hearings. Notable figures featured in the anthology include novelist Vikram Seth and restaurateur Ritu Dalmia, India's first openly gay activist Ashok Row Kavi, Dalit-transgender activist Grace Banu, filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh, transgender rights activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, and athlete Dutee Chand. The book was featured by The Indian Express as a top Pride Month read. The Hindu described it as “lucidly written,” and Hindustan Times noted that it “presents the stories of 19 queer people who have done their bit to bring about positive change in society.”
He has spoken at various literary festivals, including the Hyderabad Literary Festival and New Delhi's Rainbow Lit Fest, one of India's largest LGBT literary festivals. Aditya actively engages in advocacy for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. His work has appeared in several national and international publications including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, PinkNews, and The Telegraph''.
In 2022, he produced and hosted a six-part radio series on the BBC, focusing on men’s mental health and featuring conversations with contributors from diverse backgrounds. Several media outlets reported that, with this programme, he became the first openly queer Indian to host a podcast for the BBC, engaging themes of race, sexuality, identity, and mental wellbeing.
He later served as a producer at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire in 2024, and in 2025 was one of twelve journalists from India and Germany selected to participate in an Indo-German journalists' exchange programme organised by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with Deutsche Welle and other collaborators, aimed at rebuilding trust in the media. The programme resulted in the publication of a handbook addressing key challenges facing journalism in Germany and India.