[2] Her first book Incantations and Other Stories was published in England by Virago in 1991 and in the US by Rutgers University Press in 1992.
One of her short stories titled "Sharmaji" was included in Mirrorwork: Fifty Years of Indian Writing, a collection edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West.
Appachana received the O. Henry Festival Prize and a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in the US.
In it, six women tell the story of two lovers, Padma and Karan, spanning sixteen years.
"[4] In the same interview, Appachana adds that a writer's life is comparatively more comfortable in America than in India.