*By Samantha Errico*
Fashion designer Rachel Roy and daughter Ava Dash noticed that very few young adult novels featured Indian narratives. So they decided to write one themselves.
"We realized there have been so many retellings of Greek myths, so we decided that we wanted to be the first," Dash told Cheddar. "So we went through and found a story that really spoke to us."
"I asked her if she knew any Indian myths," Roy said of a telling interaction she had with her daughter, "and she said 'no, you haven't taught me any.'"
According to Roy, who is half-Indian, the book was also inspired by her father, who was born in Bangalore, India.
Eventually, the mother-daughter pair settled on "96 Words for Love," a story about young love and self-discovery. The coming-of-age myth follows a 17-year-old girl who "falls in love and forgets who she is," Dash said. The title, she added, refers to all 96 ways one can say the word "love" in Sanskrit.
Roy said that while she was developing the story, her then-teenage daughter was facing some of the same challenges as her fictional protagonist.
"What do I do next? Is it what my parents want me to do? Is it social media and what I see reflected in entertainment wants me to do?"
Above all, Roy said, she wants to empower her daughter to celebrate "what makes us beautiful both on the inside and on the outside."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/fashion-designer-rachel-roy-writes-young-adult-novel-with-daughter).
Fire crews have largely contained a big wildfire on the slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain.
Derek Chauvin's fate is in the hands of 12 of his peers, COVID tests now available OTC, Capitol cop's cause of death, NASA's Mars copter takes flight, and how Americans' views on cannabis have changed on this 4/20.
Despite a measurable impact that the COVID-19 pandemic made on carbon emissions throughout 2020, researchers are warning that to hold back climate change, nations need to keep pushing for reductions.
Garry Kasparov is launching an online platform called Kasparovchess that will allow chess fans to play and learn online.
Two federal agencies are sending teams to investigate the fatal crash of a Tesla near Houston in which local authorities say no one was behind the wheel.
All Americans who want a COVID vaccine can now get one. The question is whether that will be enough to get us to herd immunity. Plus, safety concerns for Peloton's treadmill, Tesla's Autopilot, and more news from the weekend.
Nine lives notwithstanding, killing a cat in a hit-and-run soon could become illegal in New Hampshire.
Developers and architects have been searching for creative solutions to zoning regulations. What started as a creative solution is now the standard blueprint for all modern apartment construction.
Ideas about how to celebrate Earth Day, even as we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FBI says that last year it questioned the man who fatally shot eight people at a FedEx plant in Indianapolis.
