Debleena Roy

About being a part of Anita’s Attic Creative Writing program

An incorrigible reader since childhood, I never cried when Sachin got bowled out for a duck or when Shahrukh Khan died in a movie. My tears, my smiles and my admiration were always reserved for writers, who could create a magical world in which I could find my realities and my dreams.

Having read most of Anita’s books, I was in a state of complete tongue-tied awe that I would get a chance to meet her, an author whose work I had admired for long. As the program started, I started admiring the single-minded focus with which Anita urged us to work on one story idea and to keep developing it over the twelve weeks as she gave insightful feedback on each element of writing and storytelling. For many of us who try to juggle full-time corporate work with part-time writer-in-waiting dreams, it is easy to let go of the words that no one other than us seem to be waiting for.

It was fascinating for me to see the discipline and dedication with which Anita mentored each of us and helped us hone our writing voice. The one-on-one feedback made my effort more real and meaningful than I had dared to think it could ever be. The interactions with fellow writers, literary agents and publishers gave concrete shape to both the art and the business of the writing world.

Questions that I had always asked myself while reading books were now answers I heard from Anita about the origin of story ideas and the importance of fact-checking and researching every element of our work. And through it all, the warmth and humour of Anita the person, made the brilliance and insight of Anita, the writer, even more real and humane. The program is the inspiration first-time authors need as they try take their own writing seriously.

Excerpt from published work:

The boat took them deeper and deeper into the forest of green shimmers and blue ripples. A lone crane glided forward, as if nodding a gentle hello. The trees that hugged the shore bent over, as if trying to protect an untold secret. They had almost reached Poovar, a lost island locked between the land, the backwaters and the sea, the sound of the silence broken only by the lashing of the waves and the flight of the birds.

Read the story here

Debleena’s Bio

Debleena is a Bangalore based storyteller, writer, start-up advisor and entrepreneur. She has spent over fifteen years working in Strategy, Analytics and Venture Capital. Her articles on Strategy and Entrepreneurship have been published in multiple magazines such as Huffington Post, Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), DataFloq, KD Nuggets, Data Science Central among others. She is a frequent speaker at Strategy and Entrepreneurship conferences. Her short stories and poems have been published in Deccan Chronicle, Literary Yard, Spark and e-Fiction magazine. One of her children’s short stories has been published in Class 3 ICSE reader and her first children’s novel is slated to be published next year.

She is currently working on a crime novel and is also writing a book on Entrepreneurship.

Debleena Majumdar’s story on Metrophobia