A small bit of press for a hugely awesome event in New York this weekend:
C H I A S M A T A May 20-22, 2005 A three-day literary festival celebrating South Asian writing The South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) invite you to our third annual literary event, celebrating the works of South Asian writers. Participants include Amitava Kumar, Abha Dawesar, Ginu Kamani, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Meera Nair, Tahira Naqvi, S. Mitra Kalita, Bushra Rehman, Shahnaz Habib, Prageeta Sharma, Alka Bhargava, Anna Ghosh, Pooja Makhijani, Sangeeta Mehta and Neesha Meminger.
…and ME! 😉 Well, only on Sunday. But I live in DC, so I have an excuse. Did I mention that the Saturday and Sunday events are FREE?
What: Literary festival including two evenings of readings and discussion, a writing workshop for emerging writers, and a panel discussion of south asians in publishing When: May 20, 21, 22 Where: the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Village Quill, and the Queens Museum of Art Please visit the event page for further details.
See you there, if you know what’s good for your soul. 🙂
I am going to set up a South Asian Mens Writing Collective.
For Men Only.
I feel marginalised by all this Women Only stuff.
Thanks, Anna!
I feel for you Punjabi Boy. But isn’t the Indian Blogosphere dominated by males already.
Let the women do their gay stuff. You chill out. You should be the last person to feel marginalized. A majority of Indian bloggers are like you (they came with one less gaping orifice)
;P
All women — except for Amitava Kumar.
I feel persecuted.
oFo! if Saurav’s not going to call you on it, i will. i think i know what you meant by “gay” and that it probably wasn’t anything mean, but for those of us who are gay or wish we were, that doesn’t feel very good. i’m just saying. 🙂
:+:
punjabi boy, sometimes love don’t feel like it should– the persecution hurts so good. 😉
I am feeling so persecuted and marginalised by this conference its unbelievable. My self esteem is so low its making me want to stuff my face with poppadom’s like Cookie Monster.
I think they should hold a special seminar about my isolation at this South Asian Womens Conference, if they have any time after talking about manicures, shopping for clothes, house work, boyfriends, brazillian waxes, or whatever it is South Asian Women writers talk about in their conferences.
I’m not sulking either, so dont say I am.
thanks again, Anna. 🙂
you were unsurprisingly much nicer than i would have been (btw, it was a pretty sexist comment too). also, the sawcc list is by far the best community desi list i’ve ever come across; unlike punjabi boy, i’ve actually had the experience of being denied entry to the list and have been struggling ever since to try and come up with a way of replicating it in a way that i can be included (without transitioning genders).
-s
The literary festival is open to everyone, not just South Asian women. (Only the monthly meetings and the listserv are for desi women only, but we all know there are tons of guys on the listserv :))
A few more details about this weekend:
Tonight: Afterparty, 10:30 pm, Solas 232 E 9th St (between 2nd and 3rd avenues), New York City, ASK FOR: the SAWCC party, in the Red Room
Tomorrow @ The Queens Museum of Art Writing the City: South Asian Authors Today A panel of renowned authors addressing urban life in their writing will discuss and read their work. Invited writers include Salman Rushdie, Kamila Shamsie, Kamila Shamsie, Suketu Mehta, Vikram Chandra, Tahira Naqvi and Meena Alexander. An evening reception featuring Sex and the Suitor, a sultry poetry reading by the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, will follow.
Sunday: Shamelss plug: I am moderating a panel on publishing. Come, come!
Saurav, find a friend to forward you all the emails :).
P.
To be honest I think the SAWCC does shut out South Asian men, like, on purpose. Which is all good, but if anyone has wondered why more South Asian men don’t go into the creative arts…..where is the community? Not whining, because you just have to suck it up, but it seems like there’s fewer places for us to find creative community. My guess is there are more desi women writing in the US versus men, most of the desi male writers are coming from South Asia or maybe the UK
Saurav, try to create a list or something
Pooja, I usually get forwards from friends. I’m annoyed, though, that there are guys on the list–I took myself off after about a day of being on because I asked through a friend if it was okay (having a fair sense that it wasn’t) and respected the vehement and fair reaction that people had.
Raju, I’m workin on it 🙂 Me and a friend are actually looking into informal ways of getting more progressive desi men in nyc together b/c there’s very poor support and we also don’t address a lot of issues we probably should (like sexism). I separately talked to another friend of mine about working on getting desi queer men together, because there isn’t really a social space for that either.
Anyway, works in continuing progress. I’m sure something will emerge at some point because the need is there.
Saurav that would be awesome
why would i even want to go listen to people who just like thier own voices? whats the point of trying to define your artistic bent based on your identity? most are second rate authors anyways. the ones who are slightly better are so full of themselves its absurd
well, perhaps you wouldn’t want to, but on the off chance that others might, i thought it wise to put it out there. 🙂 you have your opinion of the event and the authors that will grace it, someone else might find it a very cool way to spend a weekend.
music, literature, film…one’s taste in these areas is highly personal and should be respected. i didn’t like “interpreter of maladies” at ALL. but the majority of people i know and met do. eh. different strokes for different volks. 🙂
Me neither! Granted I only read the first short-story but I felt so depressed after I scrapped reading the rest of it.
SAKHI does the some thing. Damn….no love. But I can see the purpose.
some=same
I can see tha point of SAWCC and SAHKI being female-only, and actually both groups have proven it does not matter what desi men think about the group, it will happen regardless. Which is a good thing.
I feel that, power dynamics are a little different now then they were before, South Asian women have more organizing power, in many progressive groups Desi women set large parts of the agenda. Maybe there’s space for them to help Desi men out? This might sound totally ass-backwards, but in fields like non-profit work and in the arts, Desi women have a lot of social power and Desi men might really appreciate mentoring or help
I appreciated Interpeter of Maladies more on the second read, but I was disappointed too; I honestly felt that it was written for a White audience more than for us. Namesake, on the other hand, I recuse myself from thinking about critically because I felt so close to it on so many different levels that I thought it was about me.
I’m still much fonder of Zadie Smith’s books though (esp. Autograph Man); Jhumpa is aking to my family whereas Zadie is like my quirky, funny, good friend 🙂
Did anyone bother to read Brick Lane? I heard a reading at a SAYA fundraiser and wasn’t overly impressed and hence didn’t bother.
I agree with the broader point, Raju, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that in multigendered spaces (at least the ones I’ve been in…like Sepia Mutiny and most activist groupings and queer spaces), a woman’s perspective is dominating them. But that’s part of the reason why it might be important for them to give us some technical support / yell at us a bit (constructively!–that’s the other problem I notice…some people use gender and race and other identities to promote their own power rather than to work in good faith).
Anyway, send me your e-mail addy and maybe we can discuss further over e-mail. I think things are starting to come together.
Also, I think it’s important to distinguish between the reasons why Sakhi and SAWCC (and other groups) are women-only or women-dominated spaces: Sakhi services victims of domestic violence, the vast majority of whom are women; SAWCC has made a choice to define its community in a certain way, the background for which I’m not aware of.
No I didn’t say dominating, I said setting part of the agenda. I think thats accurate….
I agree with you on SAHKI versus SAWCC
also, I don’t think we ever need to be yelled at. Honestly that was a phase in my life I would not like to re-live…feeling that as a Desi man its my place to be berated for the sexism within my community
keep me posted on developments!
Will do.
Just out of curiousity does SAWCC run some sort of book club?
They used to have a lot of events…I’m not sure what they do now. You should join the list and ask them (or it might be on their website). If there isn’t a formal book club, I’m sure there are a bunch of women that would be interested in starting one or are already running one.