Reflecting on my journey as a writer is probably the post I enjoy writing most. Writing is such a slow business and wins are so few and far between that it's easy to get bogged down by all the endless waiting, the ghosting, and the rejections. Yet, when I look back at my year, I realise, again, how far I've come. Each year, I celebrate my wins. I celebrate the books I've written and the ones I'm writing. In brief, here's what my year brought me:two middle-grade books (one was already published by Scholastic Asia, but it came to India in January 2024)a Highlights Foundation scholarship to attend a course on revising a verse noveldozens of school visits, author events, and lit fests... and finally, an agent! Fishbowl Fishbowl is my second novel-in-verse for middle-grade readers. In some ways, it's more ambitious than my first, Uncontrollable, because … [Read more...]
My Year in Writing: 2022
What can I say about a year when I FINALLY managed to take my books to audiences? At lit fests in Gurugram, Vadodara, Jaipur and Pune, I shared my books, interacted with children, and did school visits once more. Almost all through 2022, I was on a high!And yet, the true highlight of the year as a writer was the publication of a book I started writing in 2015, after I visited the beautiful forests of Nagzira. Red EyesRed Eyes is an environmental thriller, and it is one of the very few books I've written that was never rejected. I started writing it in 2015, but I'm what they call a pantser. I muddle about, writing what I can, letting the story take the lead. So, in the beginning, I had nothing but an assortment of tales told to us by guides we met in Nagzira and Tadoba.Guide tales? Interesting, sure, but I wanted more. So I started putting them all together in a story told … [Read more...]
Reflections: Day Three at AFCC 2022
Day three at AFCC 2022 was the whole reason I was there. Book launch day! Of course, that was the highlight of my day, so even though that did not technically come first, I'm going to begin with it.Book Launch by Scholastic AsiaMy book, Red Eyes, has been a long time in the making. I'll write about the story behind the story (like I did for Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells, The Clockwala's Clues and Sisters at New Dawn) soon, but launching it at the Asian Festival of Children's Content was such a delight! Equally delightful was listening to the other three authors talk about their books. I would love to read them all!The book launch was a public event, so you can still watch it here.Now, I'll come back to everything I attended as a participant, and all that I took away from the festival.When Comics Come to the ClassroomA few weeks ago, I organised a … [Read more...]
Back from AFCC 2018
Four years ago, I had not heard of the Asian Festival of Children's Content. I did not know that Singapore's National Library had 16 floors of books. And then, I was shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award 2016, which was momentous enough for me to buy a festival pass and attend my first AFCC. I didn't win the award, but that was the beginning of a new journey - one that has led to my first Scholastic publication, Dragonflies, Jigsaws, and Seashells (originally Dragonflies, Jigsaws and a Rainbow).Then, in 2017, I answered a call for papers and was invited to speak at the AFCC. I spoke at a panel on writing about us, as Asians, something that I have started coming across much more frequently. At the AFCC 2017, I experienced the energy of the festival once more, as I went from session to session, making the most of an event that brought writers, illustrators, editors and … [Read more...]