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caferati
A collaboration over too much coffee.
coffee and pen

17 April, 2010

A Life of Crime

Update:

This workshop has been cancelled. Mr Nesser has not been able to make the trip to India thanks to the volcanic ash situation. Here's the official note from the Swedish Embassy:

Owing to the volcanic ash and its repercussions on all things important - like flights in and out of Europe - our visiting author Håkan Nesser is unable to leave Stockholm and has had to cancel his visit to India.

We are really sorry about the inconvenience it would have caused you - but as you do understand, this situation is way beyond any of our control.

You have been very enthusiastic and supporting of the event. A big thanks for that.

The Embassy does look forward to collaborating with you again in the near future… and appeasing the gods of all things that fly – like volcanic ashes and flights.


With Nesser and Lakhe

A workshop presented by the Swedish Embassy in India in association with Caferati.

The workshop will feature an interactive lecture on writing techniques, and focus on honing the skills of the participants in the art of crime fiction writing. The workshop will be led by Håkan Nesser, with Manisha Lakhe.

Håkan Nesser is a Swedish author and teacher who has written a number of successful novels, mostly crime fiction. He has won Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times, and his novel Carambole won the Glass Key award in 2000. His books have been translated from Swedish into 9 languages. He was born and grew up in Kumla, and has lived most of his adult life in Uppsala. He is a secondary level teacher. His first novel was published in 1988, but he worked as a teacher until 1998 when he became a full-time author, after having become extremely successful as a heavyweight crime writer with his Van Veeteren series. Nesser has published 20 books in Swedish. Four of them have so far been translated to English. They are Borkmann’s Point (2006), The Return (2007), The Mind’s Eye (2008), and Woman with Birthmark (2009). All of these are books in the series about Van Veeteren.
More at his site and his publisher's site.

Manisha Lakhe is a journalist, film critic, poet and writer, and one of Caferati’s founders and moderators. Her first novel The Betelnut Killers, was just release by Random House India. She lives and works in Mumbai.
More at her site and her publisher's site.

The basics
Date: 24th April
Time: 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. (with a one-hour break for lunch)
Venue: Conference Room, Pinstorm Technologies, Ground floor, Swati, North Avenue, Santacruz West, Mumbai 400054
The workshop is free, but limited seats available. Registration is compulsory.
To register, send (1) a short - 100 words or so - introductory paragraph about yourself and (2) a short crime fiction story (or an extract from a longer work) to caferati AT gmail DOT com with the subject line “A Life of Crime With Nesser and Lakhe” by 6.00pm IST, 22nd April 2010.

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Mr Nesser will be conducting similar workshops in Delhi and Bangalore, we're told. Caferati isn't involved in organising those, but we will certainly support them by passing the word around and encouraging our members to join in.

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12 November, 2009

Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops

Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops will be a part of the Celebrate Bandra Festival this year. The workshops are (links are to Facebook event pages):Tomorrow’s Authors, Scripted and PENtathlon (Note: the Facebook pages are to help spread the word. To register, you must pay up in advance at The Hub office.)

Please join the Celebrate Bandra Festival - Literature on Facebook to get updates on other events as well.

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Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops

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About Shakti Bhatt:
Shakti Bhatt was a writer, a publisher, and a friend to Caferati. She was a constant support through many of our endeavours and gave generously of her time, her presence and her advice for the little time we knew her. Sadly, she died in March 2007.
In her memory, Caferati runs an annual workshop to help writers hone their craft, to grow, and to test fresh literary waters.

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Here are the details.

Workshop costs: Rs 300 per participant per workshop (Rs 150 per participant for the kids' workshop)

The workshop are over two days, 11am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Participants will be served a light lunch.

For queries,
Email: bombay.hub@unltdindia.org, editors@caferati.com
Phone number: 022 3222 0475 (The Hub)

To register, you must pay up in advance, at The Hub office.
The Hub
UnLtd India, 4th Floor, Candelar Building, 26 St John Baptist Road, Near Mount Mary Steps, Bandra (W), Mumbai 400 050, India.

Participants must bring their own writing materials.

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Tomorrow’s Authors


A writing workshop for kids (10 - 16 years - maximum 20 participants) led by Anshumani Ruddra.

Saturday, 14 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 15 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

This workshop will look into the act of writing: structuring, editing, plotting and characterisation. Though the focus will be on short fiction the lessons learnt will be applicable towards other forms of writing - long fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction.

Each individual will work on one piece during the two day period of the workshop and the group as a whole will be responsible for critiquing each other's work. The workshop's aim is to develop young writers who can look objectively at their own work as well as the work of others.
Traditional and modern forms and structures of a story will be discussed and then promptly forgotten to enable discovery of new ones. This will lead to a set of exercises that introduces writing as an improvisational and group activity. The group as a whole will be responsible for generating ideas, working and reworking them and finally committing them to paper - always evolving the story as they go along.

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About Anshumani Ruddra
Anshumani Ruddra is an author and screenwriter based in Mumbai. He predominantly writes in the speculative fiction genre. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and he is currently putting finishing touches to his first novel for adults. He also conducts workshops for children and college students in the areas of writing, speculative fiction, scriptwriting and comic books. Visit http://ruddra.net
for more details. The Enemy of My Enemy is the first in a series of interactive gamebooks for children written by him. It has been published by Scholastic. Banana Republic, its sequel, is expected to come out in January 2010. His short stories have appeared in the following collections by Scholastic: Seven Science Fiction Stories, The Moustache Maharishi and Other Unlikely Stories, Superhero, Spooky Stories

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PENtathlon


Five Exercises for Fiction Writers (beginners, 17 years +, maximum 20 participants) by Annie Zaidi and Manisha LakheAn intense workshop targeted at kick-starting the writing process for those who want to try their hand at fiction, or those who have tried already but want to find a way around that object of ill repute: writer’s block.

Saturday, 21 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 22 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

There will be a set of five exercises, in an ideate-and-discuss format, which will take you through the whole process of putting together a short story or even a novella, if you work really, really hard. One the first say, the workshop leaders will tell you how to build characters, find appropriate settings, how to make the narrative move from one point to another. Participants will be well into their story by the end of the first day and will be expected to come up with more ideas or a fleshier story when they return the next morning.
Workshop leaders will help you find resolutions, in case you have not found them already, and share some basic techniques for cracking the walls you come up against.

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About Annie Zaidi and Manisha Lakhe
Annie Zaidi writes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama, blog posts, reports, reviews and (in a dark, distant past) recipes she never actually tried.
If gun laws weren't so strict, Manisha Lakhe would be out there shooting at every dangling participle and lynching incorrect users of grammar. Alas, she is reduced to venting poetry on unsuspecting audience and writing reviews of movies, books and other kinds of fiction.

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Scripted



A workshop for beginners on writing for stage and screen (beginners, 17 years +, maximum 20 participants) by Anuvab Pal

Saturday, 28 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 29 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

They say writing for the stage or writing drama is the oldest profession in the world, beating even prostitution.
Have you ever wanted to write a play? Have you ever written a play and abandoned it? If you've ever wondered what it would be like to make a live audience react to things you've got to say, you probably want to join politics or write for the stage. This workshop is for the latter.
Writing for the stage in Bandra is the same as writing for the stage anywhere else, so we'll go through the basics of plot, structure, characters, conflict, intentions and ideas.
And then together, we'll try to tell some stories that for reasons you'll discover and tell us about, is best told on a stage.

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About Anuvab Pal:
Anuvab Pal is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays include The President Is Coming, Chaos Theory and 1-888-Dial-India. His movies include Loins of Punjab Presents (co-written) and The President Is Coming.

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19 September, 2009

Poetry Masterclass

POETRY WORKSHOP MASTER CLASS
Friday, October 9 - Wednesday, October 14, '09, 2.30pm to 6.30pm,
at Open Space

Open Space invites participation in a 6-day workshop which will help participants deepen their understanding of the techniques and art of poetry writing and reading.The workshop will be conducted by poet and novelist Priya Sarukkai Chabria. Her publications include the novels Generation 14 (Penguin-Zubaan, 2008) and The Other Garden (Rupa&Co, 1995), poetry collections Not Springtime Yet (HarperCollins, 2008) and Dialogue and Other Poems (Indian Academy of Literature, 2005, reprint 2006). The anthologies All Poetry is Protest (2006) and 50 Poets 50Poems (2007) are edited by her. She is currently translating the hymns of 8th century Tamil poet, Aandaal. A seminar-cum-utsav The Image of the Writer in Literature was curated by her in 2007 for the Indian Academy of Literature and more recently, she curated for them the literary salon, The Self and Its Translations. Priya Sarukkai Chabria has collaborated with artists from classical dance, film and painting. Her work is published in various journals and websites in Europe, the US and India. She was invited to participate in the writers' salon, Worlds 2009: The Creative Writer by the New Writing Partnership, UEA, UK. Aim:

This is conceived as a demanding and challenging workshop for both teacher and student. Rather than settle for a how-to-write-a-good-poem workshop that offers notes on types of poems and operates largely on students passively receiving inputs from the teacher, this is primarily meant to be a conduit to the student’s creativity, encouraging him/her to take creative leaps across restricting boundaries.
The aim is to facilitate students to know how their minds work on creative problems, how to tackle the exploration of their subject, arrive at ideas and work towards a form.
The workshop will cover five days during which:
Participants will be introduced to the poetry of different cultures and poets to examine the techniques and methods of idea exploration and elaboration.
Rather than how-to reading, participants will be encouraged to read actively and ask creative questions that should feed into their own writing.
The workshop will be a space in which participants experiment and innovate, debate and discuss, free of market pressures so that their innate creativity can be encouraged to flow freely.
Students will be encouraged to interact with each other as well as spend time by themselves, taking writing exercises that will later be discussed in class.
Students will, over the days of the workshop, be encouraged to work on their own poem that will periodically be reviewed.
Each participant will be given some individual time by the teacher where their work is discussed.


Structure:
Rather than a fixed structure that will operate as per a timetable, it is advantageous for participants to follow a more fluid model. Therefore, the workshop is conceived as an interactive mode of dialogue, discussion, critiquing and writing exercises which should lead to the near completion of a poem by every participant as well as enabling each one to think about poetic ideas and constructions.Sessions will be in a creative mode. However, on each day there should be a period allocated to:
mandatory reading of a select poem
a teaching session
a group discussion on critiquing poems
working on writing exercises (this will be a substantial part of each day)
working by oneself on his/her poem
articulation and presentation

The theme of the poetry workshop is Relationships: Social, environmental, interpersonal, with one’s self, with language et al.

Application Criteria:
Those who have faith that something will emerge from the play of language and sound and are prepared to experiment with words and are passionate about writing are invited to apply.
Participants should be emerging poets who will be selected on the basis of the poems they send in prior to the workshop. All applications (CVs) must be accompanied by four original poems by the applicant and mailed to Priya Sarukkai Chabria at surpriya34@gmail.com and cced to events@openspaceindia.org with the subject: Poetry workshop master class. All applications should be mailed before Wednesday, September 30th, 09.
Participants short-listed for the workshop are required to pay a fee of Rs 2000/- at Open Space by October 4th, ’09 anytime between 11am and 5.30pm. The workshop fee includes a membership for the applicant to the Open Space library for a period of one year from the date of registration. The library offers over 2,000 books, 400 documentaries and 200 world cinema classics (an additional deposit amount of Rs 500 is payable for library membership but this is refundable at any time).

For further information on any of these programs call Openspace at 25457371
Open Space encourages debate and action on rights, justice and sustainable development.Open Space is an initiative of the Centre for Communication & Development Studies (CCDS) aimed at strengthening civil society and mobilising citizen’s action.

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24 October, 2007

Caferati's first annual Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshop - a report

A report on the workshop (which was announced here & here) is long overdue, for which, my apologies. If it had been up to me, I would still be searching for my notes. Thankfully, there is an Annie. And an Anita.

-peter


Annie Zaidi on the session about Indian Poetic Forms:

The evening began with me making emergency calls to Ashwini — had forgotten to organize envelopes — and Danish — would he please pick up blank paper and extra pens — before landing up a good 45 minutes early at the Attic, where the organisers of the miniature paintings sat at a little table, looked at me expectantly and offered me a chair.

I looked at the paintings, thought about how beautiful the photos would look with these as the backdrop, fretted about what we’d do if enough people didn’t land up or too many did, and paced about anxiously while the Attic staff laid out the ‘farsh’ and the chairs.

As people began to stroll in, I worried about whether to put the shoes inside or outside and whether there was a chance of them being stolen outside. Then I went about collecting money from the participants — and one would-be participant who could not attend because of a last-minute emergency, but showed up anyway to pay up since he had confirmed attendance (thank you, gentle person).

When Professor Shivaprakash called, unable to find his way from Regal, Monica kindly went down to fetch him. He arrived with another scholar from JNU and ten minutes later, we started the workshop.

While the good professor said several things about poetry in general, and more specifically about the historical contexts of forms and short forms like the haiku, I did not manage to take down everything.

However, I do remember that he had compared poetry to firecrackers.

Just like there are two kinds of crackers — the single dazzle-burst kind, like the anaar for instance, and the multiple boom-boom-boom kind, like the larhi — similarly, there are two kinds of poetry. The latter kind gradually reveals itself, one idea leading to the next, and culminating in one final burst that may be a big, definitive finale or a quiet fizzle. The other kind says all it has to in a very short space of time with a very limited use of words. The haiku for instance. Or a doha, a tanka or an abhang. Or the vachana.

He also said that these shorter forms could be equated with a Zen-like instantaneous illumination.

Prof Shivaprakash had chosen to concentrate on vachanas, a form of Kannada poetry from the medieval ages, and also the subject of a forthcoming book he is editing for Penguin India.

Literally, a vachana means ‘speech.’ Alternately, it also means ‘promise.’ A vachana he said originates from triplets in Kannada that was often sung by women, and often contained rural and/or domestic themes.

In the medieval era, vachanas were popularized by speaker-poets many of whom came from the artisan classes and as the form evolved, their poetry became a tool of critique, against both the existing modes of poetry and transmission of knowledge.

Poetry is comprised of meaning and sound, he said. And what these new speaker-poets did was to challenge the content of Sanskrit poetry while simultaneously changing the way it sounded. They were opposed to the use of ‘abhida’ or a referential language. A referential language would depend on figures of speech, such as similes. They felt that a simile is a substitute, and therefore nor the real thing. Only real experience ought to be the subject of poetry, according to the vachana poets and therefore, they often spoke of their own lives, their work and their immediate environment.

Professor Shivaprakash also discussed the two foundations of meter in poetry. One depends on the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables, which is how it is in older English poetry. The other kind depends on the equivalence of syllables, that is, vocalic length, such as it is in a ghazal. However, meter, he said, is only one manifestation of rhythm in a poem. There is also the notion of a sprung rhythm, which is what vachanas use. Such as ‘we were the first that ever burst into the silent sea.’

In the Kannada vachanas, there are few end rhymes, but there is often an initial rhyme. The first or second sounds of each line may rhyme. This brought a different kind of symmetry to the language. One of the best-known, and Professor Shivaprakash’s favourite, vachana poet is Akkamahadevi. He had circulated copies of some of her work as samples that were given away to participants.

The session was opened up to questions later and several participants wanted to ask the professor tough questions. On the question of what exactly the form was like, he said that the thing about this form was that it followed no rules. It is rooted in the breaking of form, and therefore, it is difficult to ascribe rules to it. He was not sure that new poets will succeed in writing a vachana, or how to advise them to write it, but added that it is possible to write ‘a vachana-like poem’.

Towards the end of that discussion, I observed that forms seem to grow from one to the other, with new twists and variations leading to new names for the form. Such as the qasida giving birth to the masnavi, the marsiya and the ghazal and how the ghazal itself seems anxious to grow in different directions but seems not to be able to find a new name for the newer experiments.

That led to some talk of other Indian poetic forms such as the anthadi and the keh-mukarni (both of which we have seen many examples of in Caferati's forum), examples of which were read out and met with much delight.

The participants seemed more enthused by the idea of the naughtier, saucier keh-mukarni so that form was chosen for an exercise. Several people came up with instant verses which were read out to much merriment and blushing. (Note to participants: do post your efforts in this thread, if you don’t mind.)

Though I had not read mine out, I had written this one:

There’s such black in his eyes
Black his tongue, black his lies
Black as coal, black as a rai
Your beloved? No, the kadhai.


This was followed by a short break for snacks — dhokla, samosa, gulab-jamuns, tea — and we went on to the next session on editing, led by Anita Roy and Urvashi Butalia.


Anita Roy, on the Editing for Non-Editors session that she and Urvashi Butalia conducted. Urvashi and Anita are from Zubaan.

The workshop kicked off with the participants all coming up with their own definitions of what an editor should be/should do. This ranged from correcting grammar to taking the author out for a drink (specifically: after their MS has been rejected). The nice list of editorial roles defined by Gary Kamiya — “Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, foremen, wimps, ditch diggers, mind readers, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoons — sometimes all while working on the same piece” — was added to by the group: my favourite being “butcher.” Urvashi went on to elaborate on all the different kinds of editors there are out there — commissioning eds, desk eds, copy eds — and what to expect from each.

I then, perhaps fancifully, compared an editor's work to that of a gem-cutter: polishing, honing, cutting, until the light passes through as sparklingly and as clearly as possible. Some diamonds are rougher than others, so need more work. Some will never be more than a hunk of coal, and best consigned to the fire early on.

Then, having hedged around a bit and said how there aren't any real guidelines about how to approach a commissioning editor with your work, proceeded to contradict myself totally by laying down THE LAW in the form of 10 Commandments (see below).

Getting down to brass tacks, we all had a bash at re-punctuating a piece of de-punctuated text: specifically, an extract of Don Marquis's free verse work, Archy and Mehitabel. Had a lot of fun figuring out where to put quote marks and arguing about commas.

Then we sharpened our pencils and the cutting blades of our editorial minds by tackling an extract of an article that appeared in "Crime and Detective", whose idiosyncratic usage of the language reduced many participants to tears — of laughter. But which, usefully, kicked off a discussion about how much authorial quirkiness (and specifically Indian-English intonation, usage and vocab) one should or could allow.

One of the nicest comments afterwards was a backhander: "When they said there'd be editors coming to talk to us about editing, I thought: Oh my god, how dull can it get? But actually, I really enjoyed that."

Well, good. So did we.

I think Shakti would have too.


Anita's Ten Commandments:

Submitting your MS to a publisher
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Thou shalt first find out about the publisher.
If you’ve written a short story for children, there’s no use sending it to Granta. If you’ve written a book review, send it to a journal that actually carries reviews. If you’ve written a book about growing dahlias, don’t send it to a publisher of feminist fiction. Etc. etc. Go to a bookshop or your bookshelves and see who’s published the kind of book that you think yours would sit well next to. Do your research first, and find out which place is going to suit your work best, which ground is likely to be the most fertile for your kind of seed to grow.

2. Thou shalt abide by the submissions process.
Usually on their website the magazine, journal or publisher will have something called “Guidelines for submissions”. Do stick by these if you possibly can.. They are there for a reason. If they state up front that they only accept proposals through an agent, don’t expect them to make an exception for you. If they say: don’t send it by email; then don’t.

3. Thou shalt not tell the publisher why they should publish you.
It’s an editor’s job to figure out whether this MS is suitable for their list, whether it will sell, and why: not yours! Editors are invariably turned off by authors going for the hard-sell: eg “I am sending you the gist of my most valuable work. I am sure it will excite you and you would react positively.” Also be realistic about your target readership — “It will appeal to young ones and senior citizens” cutteth zero ice.

4. In your covering letter, never resort to LARGE FONTS, underlining, exclamation marks, bold, or coloured type.
This smacks of a kind of lapel-tugging desperation on your part — not good — and also the suspicion that you think the editor has the deductive powers of a three year old, who needs Bright colours and Loud sounds to hold his/her attention. Is this really who you want to be editing your precious prose?

5. Thou shalt make sure thy covering letter is not full of typos!
Scan and rescan and print out on paper and then get someone else to read through your covering letter before you send it off. There is nothing more off-putting than having an author make spelling and grammatical mistakes in his/her initial approach – does not encourage an editor to read on.

6. Thou shalt judiciously exploit personal contacts.
“X suggested I contact you.” “We met at Y launch”. “I heard you speak at Z conference” – anything that helps the editor feel that there is some kind of personal connect will help your MS stand out from the crowd.

7. Chose your fonts with care.
Go for safe fonts: Courier, Times, Garamond, Times New Roman. Don’t feel that you need to have ‘designed’ your page before sending them in. In fact, that may backfire: if you’ve got illustrations that the editor hates or have laid out a page in a way that just doesn’t go with their style, it makes it that much harder for the editor to see past the flummery to the “meat” i.e. your words!

8. Attach attachments.
Double check when you say you’re attaching an attachment that you actually do! And make sure it’s in as bog-standard a format as you can think of: MS Word almost always. 1.5 or double-line spaced.

9. Tell them who you are.
Always helpful to have a bit of biodata about the author — where you’re based, age, profession, what else you’ve written or done. But keep it relevant, and keep it short.

10. Thou shalt take ‘No’ for an answer
If you’ve been rejected by one publisher, go kick the door, or the dog, put on some loud rock, pour yourself a stiff whisky, cry, wail or otherwise get it out of your system. Then find someone else to reject you again. Do NOT argue with a ‘reject’ letter. Everyone knows they are full of platitudes like “not quite right for our list at the present time” — do not write back and say, oh, that’s ok I can wait, what about next week/month/year?
There’s no reason why you can approach the same person/publisher with another story another poem another time, but asking for a re-trial is a big no-no.

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And finally, comments from some of the participants.

Monica Mody:
Thank you, you guys, for organizing this fabulous workshop! I enjoyed Prof Shivaprakash's session even though I wish there were more interactive, poet-friendly elements in it. And sorry I couldn't stay for the entire editing session.

Nupur Maskara:
Yes, it was fun to attend. Thank you for organising it, it was a great way to remember your friend and what she stands for. I have put up the kehmukarni I wrote at the workshop on my blog.
The pics are great!
looking forward to the next session.

Gopika Nath:
I really enjoyed the workshop. Professor Shivaprakash was really very interesting and enlighteneing and opened new windows of interest. In fact I have recently picked up a book by Ramanujan on Vacanas! Urvashi and Anita were useful in terms of the exercisesthey made us do. I would have skipped some of the points Anita made re what one should or shouldn't do, which mostly called upon good ole common sense. Some of the comments/suggestions presented a& very personal, even prejudiced view, rather than one that could be seen as universally appplicable advice. There were times when I felt that for every negative idea she presented, I could already hear someone I had read/heard etc, contradict this, in my head. But that was really a very minor point.
A workshop in memory of someone who has contributed significantly to the field of writing and publishing is a great idea. However, it would be appropriate to list these contributions during the introduction. I, did not know Shakti, nor her work and really would have liked to know more than what the young girl talked of. I could not make much sense of her "being a huge person" and that ilk.
Thank you for all your efforts towards organzing this and hope that we shall have more in the future.

Venita Coelho:
I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. Thanks to you guys for putting it together.
Just one suggestion. You might want to start earlier next time. It's not very fair to people of the caliber of Urvashi and Anita to have people leave mid workshop. Perhaps an all day affair next time with a break for lunch?

Preeta Priyamvada:
It was great to be at the workshop. I did find it useful, but I had to leave early and could not sit through the entire second session - the one i was more interested in. The invite mentioned the editorial workshop would be the first one and I had planned accordingly. Anyway, I do look forward to more of such workshops. Can we have one on hindi literature too - giving an overview - history + brief information about the different genres?

Michael Creighton:
Yes, it was a good afternoon. And I did think Anita's ten commandments were helpful. Thou shalt drop names! Why not?
For what it's worth, here's my keh-mukarni, written that day.
I lick wet, salty, spicy skin;
I bite, I suck, I sigh, then grin.
Who gives so gives so good, I wanna hollah?
My wife? No, friend, the Bhutta wallah!


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If you were at the workshop, please feel free to add your impressions and/or feedback as comments. Those of you who attempted keh-mukarnis, please post them in the comments, or email me.

P.S. There are photographs taken at the workshop posted in a Facebook album.

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