Shiwani Dhiman

Shiwani Dhiman is a writer from India currently residing in the Netherlands. She holds a master's degree in English from Kurukshetra University. Her writing focuses on reflective observation, everyday life, and the emotional landscapes of migration and belonging. Some of her reflective and literary essays have been published by Brevity Blog, I Am Expat, and High North News. Through her work, she explores how ordinary moments, memory, and distance shape personal identity and storytelling. She is currently working on her first book, a reflective narrative on marriage, migration, and building a new life in another country. You can follow her writing journey on Substack: shiwanidhiman.substack.com

What a Room Allows

I read Virginia Woolf’s novels and her famous 1929 lecture, A Room of One’s Own, at the University of Cambridge during my master’s from 2021 to 2023. At the time, I did not realise how deeply her words would follow me into life beyond the classroom. At first, it was simply a part of my curriculum, something I had to study for the exams and pass the course. But gradually, as a writer, it began to permeate my daily existence. Woolf writes about a woman who needs a place of her own to write.