We had nearly twenty participants during the first guest session of the season, an illustration workshop with Lavanya Karthik! Focusing particularly on her Dreamers series, Lavanya talked about her creative process, and how she chose various art styles for different books. The idea of the session was to get participants to work towards creating a self-portrait. To […]
The Second Person Short Story
We haven’t ever worked on the second-person short story, which is what made this writing workshop particularly interesting for me! I love it when I get to work with something new at a guest session! Michelle D’costa conducted a detailed session, introducing the three narrative perspectives and focussing on the second person narrator. From common […]
Lights, Camera, Action!
Lights, Camera, Action! was a whirlwind introduction to filmmaking, one which I thoroughly enjoyed. I know next to nothing about filmmaking, making this guest session all the more exciting for me. What an informative, detailed session it was! We began by watching a short film in French, Detour by Michel Gondry. Samina Mishra, our guest for the evening, […]
Cartooning with Vineet Nair
What makes a cartoon different from a regular drawing? What is easier to draw? What do you think is important when you are drawing a cartoon? We had such an enjoyable workshop on cartooning with Vineet Nair, comic book illustrator and Art Director of Tinkle! The first rule, which I loved, but which the participants […]
The Art of Laughter
Every time I begin a new batch of my writing programme, it feels like the weeks fly by! This edition is nearly at an end, marked by our third and last guest session of the season. This session was conducted by Arundhati Venkatesh, author of a number of humorous books. My book clubbers have read […]
PodLab with Menaka Raman
At the Neev Literature Festival 2023, I watched Menaka Raman conduct a session on character development, and I knew I wanted to invite her to my writing programme. She did a session for us today, and what an engaging session it was! Her lively teaching style made the workshop a treat. This workshop was my […]
Illustrating Picture Books with Ashok Rajagopalan
What an enriching session we had on illustrating picture books with Ashok Rajagopalan! “I didn’t know this, but I make an angry face when I’m drawing an angry face!” Ashok said. “If I want to draw a sad face, I make a sad face myself.” I remember seeing something about Disney doing the same thing. […]
Character Design with Priyankar Gupta
Practice. What a difference practice makes! Right through yesterday’s guest session on character design, I marvelled at how swiftly Priyankar Gupta created his characters. Talking all the time, explaining what he was doing, he was able to draw not one, but six full forms in fifteen minutes! Characters, both human and non-human, are led by […]
How to Rhyme Without Reason
How I love guest sessions! Yesterday’s workshop on nonsense verse with Anushka Ravishankar was a treat. It’s delightful how serious nonsense verse is! Full of contradictions, full of rules (of what nonsense verse is not), and full of surprises, we learned so much and wrote nonsense poems of our own too. Essentially, nonsense writing is […]
Green Stuff and Nonsense
What a fun session we had on green writing with Bijal Vachharajani! In a single hour, we spoke of a million creatures from elephants to frogs, ferrets to spiders, lion-tailed macaques to slugs that aren’t slugs. Bijal’s workshop was a guest session at my writing programme. We’ve just reached the end of our poetry module, […]
Art Workshop with Kripa
Each time a new writing programme begins, I feel it whizzes by. Twelve weeks are nearly over, and here we are, after our last guest session of the programme, an art workshop with art educator and children’s illustrator, Kripa. It was such a treat! I’ve been looking at Kripa’s art for a while, and I […]
Non-Boring Nonfiction
It is always so rewarding when a guest speaker repeats something you’ve been saying at your writing programmes for a long time! Thank you, Vaishali, for this session on non-boring nonfiction, and for reiterating so many things that keep needing to be said! In November last year, I watched Vaishali Shroff conduct two sessions at […]
Poetry in Collaboration with Sampurna Chattarji
My first guest session of the season – Poetry in Collaboration – was such a success! With sixteen enthusiastic participants and one lively, energetic facilitator, the hour flew by before we knew it. Haiku, renga, nonets, free verse–we explored it all. Often, we believe that writing must be a solo activity. We have creative thoughts […]
Building Dramatic Characters
What fun we had at ‘Building Dramatic Characters’ – a guest session conducted by Neha Singh for my creative writing programme! To quote Neha, anything can be a character. Maybe even a chair talking to the moon! The strength of a character simply depends on how much you have invested in the character to make […]
Demystifying Publishing
One of the best things about my creative writing programmes is how much I learn on the way. For one, before each class, I research for hours. One hour of class time typically requires at least four hours of research.And for another, I invite guests to talk about a variety of subjects from science fiction […]
The Editor’s Perspective
The last guest session at this edition of my creative writing programme was with Daphne Lee, consulting editor at Scholastic Asia. It was everything I expected it to be – informative, detailed, and full of laughter. She answered questions, told us about the publishing process, and shared a manuscript with us, detailing how the editing […]
The Art of Zines
We just had another rewarding guest session! Niloufer Wadia, an illustrator and Urban Sketcher, covered so much ground in one short hour with my creative writing programme – you can guess what I mean from the picture above! From showing us different kinds of zines to telling us about storyboarding, she led us through the […]
‘Mics It Up! – A Comic-Making Workshop
I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again. There’s nothing like inviting guests to my writing programmes. The energy, the fun, the enthusiasm … Can you believe that every participant (except me) managed to create a comic strip during the session? Greystroke, an author, illustrator, filmmaker and entrepreneur, took us through the […]
All About Research with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya
What an enjoyable writing workshop we had yesterday with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya! Every guest session is fun, and I keep realising that when a teacher plans a session, it is meticulous, detailed, excellent! We discussed what we research, how we research and why we research, but then we went on to something that’s important to […]
The ART of Stories
And just like that, the third and last guest session at this edition of my online creative writing programme is over! This one was an illustration workshop, conducted by children’s book illustrator and author Tanvi Bhat. As always, the participants had so many questions! Here are a handful. How do we create our own style […]