shyamala's world

Writing for kids has been Debashish Majumdar's passion for over two decades. He has written books for kids of all ages.   Mango DC recently released two of his e-books-Tiger Comes Home and The Magical Sunglasses. Debashish shared info on his books  and writing.                    How did you get into the world of writing? As a little boy, I was sent by my parents to live with my maternal grandparents in Shillong. My grandfather had a small library of his own. He encouraged me to read and write stories on my own.   My grandfather was not only a very literary person, but he would also routinely listen to the BBC World Service. So, I too had taken fancy to listen to short stories broadcast over the BBC. Surprisingly, I wrote my first short story at the age of fifteen for the BBC World Service and I received a lot of praise and encouragement from the Broadcasting Director of the BBC. What was your first book a...

Veteran children's author, Ratna Manucha, is out with a new poetry book titled It's That Time of the year. In this interview, she shares her world of writing . Q1. How did you get into the world of writing? Going down memory lane, I remember the long, lonely days after school, spent poring over Enid Blyton and later, Thomas Hardy and Louisa May Alcott. I cannot pinpoint exactly when I fell in love with the written word, but I do know this, I was well and truly hooked. People eat meals...I ate books, devoured them, in fact! Then marriage happened, and I got an opportunity to write for All India Radio in Assam and West Bengal and Nagaland. In fact, now that I look back, I realise I was always looking for an opportunity to dabble in the written word. Being married to the Olive Greens, I began contributing articles, poems, short stories and limericks to various local papers and magazines in the different places we were posted to. While in Nagpur, I began writing i...

Delhi based children's author Deepa Agarwal has come out with a new book dealing with illiteracy  and girl empowerment. Released by Hachette, Blessed, is a gripping middle grade book filled with intriguing twists and turns. Find out more about Deepa's latest book and her writing in this interview.                                                      Hachette is extremely choosy when it comes to publishing fiction titles.  What do you think tilted the scale in Blessed ’s favour? Well, frankly speaking, you should ask my editor Vatsala Kaul Banerjee! I  think it was the theme of education for girls that appealed to her. You  know, in children’s book publishing, the general belief is that original  fiction by Indian authors does not sell well. For this reason, I was  overjoyed and extremely grateful when Hachette accepte...

Veteran children's author and poet, Santhini Govindan , recently received a fellowship from the Government of India. In this interview she shares  details about her fellowship and latest books.                                                        1. This is the third time that you have been awarded a fellowship. What makes a fellowship so appealing to you? I was awarded my first fellowship (a Junior Fellowship in Literature for two years) in August 1996 by the Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, to write h istorical fiction for children in the short story form. I am greatly interested in history, so I really enjoyed researching and writing these stories. The next fellowship I got (a two year Senior Fellowship) was in 2002. This was for a completely different subject. The fellows...

 Vincy Quadros is this year’s Bala Sahitya ward winner for Konkani literature. His book, Jaduche Pettul(Magic box) is a fantasy middle grade novel which was first published in 2011 and won the award in 2017.  The Konkani language has five scripts- Devnagri, Romi, Malayalam, Kannada and Perso Arabic. Vincy’s award winning book has been written in the Romi script . The story revolves around Abdul, a poor boy who find a fairy in a box. Abdul inherits a kingdom without an heir and resolves conflict between kingdoms, fostering brotherhood between warring kings and promotes the message of peace.  He never returns home. The story ends when Abdul becomes an adult.  The main character of Abdul was named after a school student Quincy met in one of his school workshops.  He was teaching the process of ideating stories and posed a question, “What will you do if you find a magical treasure box?”  A student named Abdul started the story about a boy inheriting ...

She is an instant hit in the Mumbai school and college circuit.   Be it nature walks, talks or children books on animals, Katie Bagli is everyone's  first choice. Kahani Takbak quizzed the nature loving author about her new release,   The Less Known Lovables (Shree Books). 1                                    1. Tell us a bit about your journey as a writer. I began writing about 7 years ago.  It just happened.  I completed some correspondence courses in Entomology, Biodiversity and Botany with BNHS.  These courses involved quite a few field trips where I got excited seeing creatures in the wild.  Their behavior fascinated me and inspired me into writing.  2    Did you start your career as an author or an illustrator? I definitely began as a writer, the illustrating was purely incidental. 3    Your lov...

Why did you choose to write about Vikram and Vetaal? ​ Actually the request came from the publisher. My editor Sohini Mitra told me that they had a translation by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Chandra Rajan in the Penguin Classics series and wanted to bring out a child friendly version. As you know, these tales have passed into the realm of children's literature though the written Sanskrit texts are not really suitable for kids. Many years back, I had done a selection of 14 stories for Scholastic India titled  The   Tricky Tales of Vikram and Vetal  so I asked the editor Tina Narang if it was OK to write them again for another publisher. She was kind enough to give permission. ​  2.  How easy or difficult was it researching on those stories? Was the book easily available in the library? Generally libraries charge a lot just to allow people to handle these ancient texts and photocopy them? Did you face any challenges in the library? ​ You are absolut...