Author: Anita Nair

  • The Grand Finale to Season 1 of Anita’s Attic at Namma Metro, MG Road, Bengaluru

    The Inaugural Class-Anita's Attic-Creative Writing Mentorship Program

    You are cordially invited to the graduation ceremony and celebrations of the first batch of writers graduating from Anita’s Attic Creative Writing Mentorship Program.

    Jayanth Kodkani – Deputy Resident Editor, Times of India Bengaluru has graciously consented to be the Chief Guest for the graduation ceremony. Please do join us as the Graduating Class read out from their live projects at the Rangoli Metro Theatre, MG Road Bengaluru, on April 11th 2015 between 5 – 7 pm.

    The Inaugural Graduating Class

    Vestin VergheseHarini Rajasekhar
    Akhil KakkarMeena Chandrasekhran
    Apoorva SatishNandini Murali
    Archana VijaySathya Ramaganapathy
    Krupa GeSwapna Narayanan

    Look forward to seeing you on

    Date : April 11th 2015
    Time : 5 – 7 pm
    Venue : Rangoli Metro Theatre, MG Road Bengaluru

  • Aditi De | A rainbow comes a-visiting to Anita’s Attic

    It was the penultimate session of Anita’s Attic and over the course of the last eleven weeks, my writers had met an assortment of literary people. I saw their morale rise and fall; I saw energies flag and then revive; I heard doubts they voiced, the doubts they didn’t. I tried to hold their hand as much as I could but eventually I thought they needed to hear from someone who after a career of meeting deadlines now chose to make her own and motivate herself with the passion she felt for words and joy that filled her when she wrote.

    Many writers of my generation cut our publishing tooth on a page called YOUTHINK in the Indian Express. I am not sure if it was the new Indian Express then. But apart from Harry Miller whom I worshiped, the only other name I knew in the newspaper was Aditi De. Soon as the person one sent off one’s heart and soul out to every few weeks, she became someone who could determine what your state of mind was like. Euphoria if a piece was accepted. Anxiety if one didn’t hear from her. Anguish if a rejection slip came my way.

    Over the years Aditi and I met, and perhaps one of my true moments of accomplishment was when she interviewed me after my first novel The Better Man was published.

    Aditi came. Aditi saw. Aditi conquered.

    At the end of the session at Anita’s Attic, one of the writers described her as a rainbow. Thank you Rainbow De for putting a smile on my writers faces just before they went forth on their own.

  • Karthika VK, publisher, HarperCollins, on writing despite all odds, at Anita’s Attic

    A mythical beast called a publisher.

    As an unpublished writer, the image of a publisher in my mind was of a man who was part Karl Marx, part Freud, part Julius Caesar and part D. H. Lawrence. I imagined him in a suit smoking a pipe. I imagined him sitting at a long table with nothing on its surface except his gold pen, spectacle case and an ash tray. I imagined a publisher who did nothing but sign large publishing advance cheques for writers before going off to his club to drink a whisky and eat smoked salmon sandwiches with which ever literary great he was wooing at that point.

    I was the child with nose pressed against the glass looking in and marveling. My first book was published and and I met my publisher who was staying with the Governor of Karnataka. He took me for a walk around the gubernatorial grounds, fed me cucumber sandwiches and tea and as we chatted, I noticed that he had a gold pen and a spectacle case on the table before him.

    But then my first novel happened and I moved to a new publishing house and a new editor. She looked nothing like Marx, Freud, Caesar or Lawrence but she had them all within her and so much more. Over the last 17 years, she became my editor, publisher and dearly beloved friend. And that is the image of a publisher I wished for my writers at Anita’s Attic to see.

    For the 10th session of Anita’s Attic, Karthika VK, publisher, HarperCollins India talked to the writers telling them of what lies ahead and what it takes to keep faith and write despite the odds and obstacles.

  • Sudeshna Shome Ghosh, editor, at Anita’s Attic

    Very often unpublished writers imagine a situation where the editor of a large publishing house reputed to offer million dollar advances to unknown names would fling open the door of his cabin to the writer hovering outside with a 350-page manuscript typed in single space and say: “I don’t want to know why you’re here. Just come in, and sit down. Here, this is my favourite chair. Is it sufficiently close to the AC? Take off your shoes, please — no, let me help you; my secretary will wash your feet. We were just about to have a biriyani; won’t you join us? How about a glass of tender coconut water? Eat, drink your fill; make a few long distance calls. Then tell me, when you’re ready, who your parents are and where you come from and the reason that brings you here. And then I am going to take this day off and read every word you have written.”

    The truth is something else. And it was to talk about the reality of the editorial process and how the publishing industry functions that I thought it best to invite one of my editors Sudeshna Shome Ghosh with whom I worked on three of my children’s books to talk to the writers at Anita’s Attic.

    Needless to say the session was informative, fun and nipped in the bud many delusions of what awaits a writer :).

    Thank you Sudeshna for saying it as it is without dampening dreams.

  • Harimohan Paravu, fast bowler, management mentor, and fine writer at Anita’s Attic

    Sometimes every writer aspiring to be an author needs a reality check.

    Writers need to hear someone who doesn’t mince words about what it is really like. Writers need to travel with someone who from another world made an entry into the literary world. Writers need to learn from someone who manages to retain his passion for literature no matter what.

    For the 8th session of Anita’s Attic, Harimohan Paravu, fast bowler, management mentor, and fine writer took the writers on a rollicking journey of what it means to be out there.

    The pace of a crease, the heart break of bowling a full toss in the literary world and then going on to deliver a yorker to clean bowl his way into a movie deal.

    “50 Not Out Book” by Harimohan Paravu Launch, with VVS Laxman

  • A 2-day Creative Writing Workshop at Tata Management Training Center, Pune

    There is nothing more satisfying for a teacher than to realize that her students have absorbed all that she has had to impart.

    It was the first Anita’s Attic offsite outside Bangalore for 26 Tata-ites at the Tata Management Training Centre. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the participants, their level of enthusiasm and how together we were going to make a difference.

    Much as organisations want to enhance their employees talents, the bottom line is how would they use these learnings at the workplace. Happily enough, through presentations, Q & A sessions, individual and group assignments, we discovered that they had ample room to use the Anita’s Attic experience in several ways.

    As for myself, I discover that I had immense fun sharing my understanding of writing with the group.

    Ultimately it is all about this one principle I believe in : if it isn’t fun, I won’t do it!

    The Tata Management Training Centre

  • Gita Aravamudan on handling fiction and non-fiction

    Long before everyone was talking about saving the girl child or the glass ceiling for women in the corporate space, Gita Aravamudan had started writing about everything women have to contend with.

    And on the eve of International Women’s Day, who better to address the seventh session of Anita’s Attic than the gracious and always inspiring Gita Aravamudan on the twin streams of writing she handles with equal ease and adeptness – fiction and non fiction.

  • Pradeep Sebastian, bibliophile & columnist at Anita’s Attic

    If you don’t find the book you are looking for, write it!

    As we hit the half-way mark of the Season 1 at Anita’s Attic, I could see a curious fatigue set in. Writing a piece of fiction is a lot like running a marathon and unless one paces oneself, it is easy to feel defeated a little into the run.

    The first flush of enthusiasm gives way to a flatness of thought and a falling of energy: why bother writing this book?

    Which is when a writer like Pradeep Sebastian, bibliophile, columnist and a repository of knowledge about the printed word and its many dimensions is the right person to infuse the romance of books into writers who cant see the book for the blank page before them.

  • *conditionsapply speaks on the importance of having a robust digital presence

    A blog is a dark dingy place no one really reaches until they are told how to get there; For an author in these times, visibility is key – How to leave a digital footprint was the theme of the guest speakers segment at Session 4 of Anita’s Attic’s Creative Writing Mentorship program.

    My digital partners *conditionsapply talked to the writers explaining what needs to be done to make their presence felt in the digital space. The tools and techniques to be used, and importantly, what not to do.

    Thank you Biju Ebenezer and Joshi Jose. As always you guys were terrific !

  • Krupa Ge’s story published in the Open Road Review

    It is a matter of pride and joy when one of the writers of Anita’s Attic has his or her writing published. Krupa Ge is a fine young writer from Chennai who comes to Anita’s Attic every week from Chennai. Her stories step aside from the conventional world of mainstream fiction and instead seek to locate itself in the lives of the peripheral and marginalized segments of the Tamizh society. There is texture and flavour as well as a great sensitivity. Here is one of her recently published stories in the Open Road Review.

    Krupa Ge has a gold medal in MA Sociology from the University of Madras. She has worked as a journalist for over seven years now. Her short fiction has appeared in Spark Magazine, Muse India, The Bombay Review, The New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology 2014 and Indian Literature, among other electronic and print journals. Her non-fiction work has appeared in The Hindu, The New Indian Express, The Alternative, etc.