by Mandira Pattnaik...Yet, as the years pass, my writing has been increasingly reflective of the present, the world we live in, its people, its rules. As you can imagine, my stories have been rather sad as a result. My last two fiction publications had children caught in the crossfire in an active warzone and “honor killing” practiced in India at the center of the narratives.

by Mandira Pattnaik...I understand that there is an ethic of anger — a secret code. It frequently slides into unreasonableness, and one may sometimes misdiagnose the source. It is not without peril to play with the “fire” within

by Mandira Pattnaik...Like all wordsmiths, I’ve built forests from alphabets. Like all forest dwellers, I’ve been a gatherer all my life.

by Mandira Pattnaik Blaz photo Reading can ruin your writing career. No one says that — it is equivalent to sacrilege in the literary world. In fact, the popular advice is exactly the opposite: reading helps with writing. I’ve been hearing this ever since I can remember, even when I wasn’t writing. Will I still choose to advise against reading? Yes. Don’t get me wrong — I am advising against reading too much when you are already a writer, and not any reading by any person pic

by Mandira Pattnaik Mahmoud Sulaiman After my last column, I did not expect to talk about witnessing again so soon. In a different context though, but equally miserable and malevolent. Ukraine-Russia, India-Pakistan, and now Iran-Israel. I did not expect us to be in a long dark tunnel of anxiety so enormous that we traverse through it without knowing whither its light, whither its end. I did not foresee such a disavowal of human tragedy no matter where we stand. And surely, w

by Mandira Pattnaik UX Gun/Unsplash The full picture can never be understood. There are images, social media and narratives. It is not just about the women at the frontlines — two women in uniform were chosen to make the press briefing — but there are mothers and children and people left behind. A witness is unreliable in this context. There is our present, our today, in which there is so little of everything. Scarcity stares at opulence. We have stopped caring to regather; w

by Mandira Pattnaik Marcos Paulo Prado Besides FOMO. And besides being, well and truly, envious. There’s no Fiction Month. Nowhere in the world. The closest is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a yearly event where writers aim to write a 50,000-word novel in November. Is NaNoWriMo even comparable to Poetry Month? The answer is — no. For one, National Poetry Month is not just about poets aiming to write poetry — although a huge chunk of them do write poems, some commit

by Mandira Pattnaik Briana Tozour Greetings on International Women’s Day, dear friends! I hope you’re finding ways to celebrate, no matter where you are. While this may not feel like a time to celebrate anything, let us remember that the hope and connection we foster with one another can bring comfort and light. It is not a holiday in India, where I live, and honestly, I’m baffled that it isn’t. How can we claim to honor women when several Asian nations, including China, Afgh

by Mandira Pattnaik Samuel Regan-Asante Funny what can trigger my writing on a particular day — an image; a news item; a debate on a public platform on whether arranged marriages are a fair deal; a puppy I routinely see on the road but haven’t seen in three days (Is it ill? Or was it squashed under one of the rashly-driven cars?). For example, I started the week by pausing my mindless scrolling on three lamentation posts that appeared on my timeline. In one, a poet rued the p

by Mandira Pattnaik Sage Friedman In my life in English, so to speak, there’s a sense that if I don’t hit a certain benchmark, I’ve failed. That’s the judgment I’ve felt from American culture from the start — the expectation to assimilate, and then, when I became a writer, to “represent” the Indian American experience, the immigrant experience. Then there’s the eternal, original judgment — of my mother, my parents, their immigrant community, their many friends with advanced d

by Mandira Pattnaik This week two opposing letters written by a bunch of very famous authors, publishing agents and members of cultural organizations made it to my social feed. The first one was published on October 28 in Literary Hub, and was titled ‘Hundreds of Authors Pledge to Boycott Israeli Cultural Institutions.’ Signed by such eminent authors as Sally Rooney, Ocean Vuong, Kaveh Akbar and Jhumpa Lahiri, the letter said: “We have a role to play. We cannot in good consci

by Mandira Pattnaik Daniel/Unsplash Last week, the managing editor of a prominent publication I had never before submitted to, reached out to me through my author website. They had read "Dark Matter" (published 2022; Selected in Best of 20 Years’ of Contrary Magazine; Pushcart nominated) and liked it enough to invite me to submit. A communication such as this, without doubt, is enormously flattering for any writer, and when the froth settles, one is bound to feel a surreal co

by Mandira Pattnaik Mike Von My writing life began in 2019. So I am a five-year-old kid-writer. For me, I feel the same awe and bewilderment as a kid in the world, newly discovering things. I have sad days and happy days. I feel tired like a five-year-old after school. I feel elated when an editor (to me, a teacher) praises my work. Like a five-year-old who collects pebbles and fallen leaves, I collect (and gratefully safekeep) editorial notes, reader comments, notebooks and

by Mandira Pattnaik Lucas Margoni The Booker longlist was announced on July 30. About the 13 books (by 8 women and 5 men), the statement that accompanied the announcement said: “Works of fiction that inhabit ideas by making us care deeply about people and their predicaments” — which is exactly what is truly needed in today’s world of paradoxes and mounting inequalities. Expectedly, readers across the world eagerly wait to find out who will win. They scramble to read the longl

by Mandira Pattnaik Julian Gentile “Rejection” is a violent word that speaks directly to the body, says neuroscientist and literary scholar Laura C. Otis. Otis wasn’t talking about literary rejection but personal rejection. Yet, for the longest time, writers have experienced this type of a cascade of emotions. Turns out, rejection does have physical reactions in our body that can actually be recorded, according to scientific evidence. That’s mind numbing. For sure. My editors

by Mandira Pattnaik USGS Saudi Arabia hosted the 2024 World Environment Day global celebrations last week. This year’s campaign focused on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience under the slogan “Our land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration”, which was great because land is the only thing we have. We can’t live on water, or under the surface, or up in the air. It is particularly vital for a country like India where a new analysis showed that the built

by Mandira Pattnaik Raajit Sharma It is the peak of summer. Until a week ago, day temperatures were hovering between 40 and 45 degree Celsius, but there’s been an early onset of monsoon, and we should be enjoying the steady drizzle while munching pakodas and meeting friends over cups of chai. Seems, we are not. Instead we are debating furiously. Wait. Am I in the middle of the greatest exercise in the assertion of choice in the history of the planet? You bet I am — general el

by Mandira Pattnaik Marek Piwnicki Literary novels are refugees of a time in the past, escaping to the future to tell forgotten and forgiven stories; to tell the realities of the people inhabiting these lands, and their woes and dilemmas. And curiously, also to uncover the stories behind those narratives — how they came into being. These past few weeks, two novels captured my attention for very different reasons. I received the news of the publication of Gabriel García Márque

by Mandira Pattnaik Ashlyn Ciara Lost on Me, written by Italian writer, translator and screenwriter, Veronica Raimo, longlisted in The International Booker Prize 2024 announced on March 11, has a curious narrative line: Vero has grown up in Rome with her eccentric family consisting of an omnipresent, anxiety-filled mother, a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions, and a precocious genius brother at the center of their attention. Vero wishes to break-free, but h

by Mandira Pattnaik Tom Hermans When the New Delhi World Book Fair 2024 ceded space to participating countries to showcase tourism and heritage and promote higher education opportunities available, I felt a certain sadness. It was like the organizers (National Book Trust, Ministry of Education, Government of India) had accepted that books alone, and literature alone, would not attract crowds. Not only was such presence of ancillary purposes prominently advertised, but thought