Are you a woman, lady, dame, womyn, broad, chick, butch, babe, femme, and/or girl in your 20s or 30s of South Asian origin?
Is writing a hobby, passion, interest, craft and/or obsession of yours?
Are you creative, intelligent, insightful, and dedicated enough to write your own damn words?
Do the words “Opal Mehta” make you want to hibernate in cold storage for at least a year while hooked up to an IV of rosé?
If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions then, girl, it is time to get yours! Boys, you get to cheer loudly (including, but not restricted to, well-meaning tapori whistles). Zubaan, an independent feminist publisher based in New Delhi is accepting submissions for their “Book of New Writing by Young Women”, via Zigzackly, their criteria are as follows:
• The focus of the book will be on young writers in the 20s and 30s.
• The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian writers as well as those based in India.
• Stories can be of any length up, ideally anywhere between 2-5,000 words and should be complete stand-alone narratives.
• All submissions must be in English.
• The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to include a variety of genres – from humorous pieces to science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall under the general rubric of ‘speculative fiction’.
• Preference will be given to unpublished stories. [Link]
Emphasis on that brilliant sentence is mine. All submissions (along with a short bio) are to be emailed as word attachments to either Zubaanwbooks[at]vsnl.net or contact[at]zubaanbooks.com with the subject line reading “Submission for Young Writers Anthology”. Submissions are due by July 31st, 2006. ThatÂ’s one week less than three months from todayÂ…plenty of time to fix up some old pieces, create new ones, or turn that excellent blog entry of yours into short fiction. These SM pages are rife with prime examples of women whose writing deserves to be displayed within the pages of a freshly bound book. You know who you are, I am waggling my finger suggestively in your direction.
Hmm, you think being 18 would be okay?
cool post
Or as the old Indian English joke goes, ‘Madam, I am fingering you and fingering you and still you are not coming?’
Emotionally, I’m pretty much a woman! Hell, I even like men. Can I weigh in on this? 😉
Submissions only in English so that they can be marketed globaly. What about those young people who write with passion in their mother tounge. sigh!
Dear God, Manish… is there more to that old joke?
funny :).
but i think they meant something more mundane than plagiarism which i think you alluded to by the above. ppl submit the same piece to several magazines. i think this is what they wanted to avoid by saying “unpublished pieces”.
so i get to my question, are blog entries “published” or not?
hey sin – i believe there’s a mag called bombaydost that might not be as discriminating.
Ohoho, Manish, too funny. Wait a sec…are you implying any unconsious internalization on my part? Why I am stunned! Stunned, I say! 😛
Bytewords, I am assuming that published refers to paper articles, which is why I emphasized that sentance, to encourage those who write but have not yet had an opportunity to cross over into hardcopy. Now that you mention it, makes sense that they would only want unpublished but that’s a good thing…
Sin, dang boy, enough nambypamby excuses, just write a book already! 🙂
Ya know, along with Sepia Destiny and Sepia Kitchen, there should also be a tab for Sepia Tome.
I’ll take the last 7 comments as a “no.” 😉
sure – a tab for reader contributions – and scored by readers on the following parameters (scale indicated in parentheses)
The monthly winner will get to be the next month’s guest contributor.
That joke made me laugh out loud 🙂
Hi, just found this page. Just saying hi, I dont know enough about it to just jump into the conversations as of yet. But I like so far!
There also needs to be a Spanish language version: Sepialatino.
And TV (video podcasting) via Sepia Tube.
Neha i am pointing the finger at you. I KNOW YOU CAN WRITE. (I SEE IT ON THE INTERNET) do it come on dooo it you’d be fabulous at this !
dhavaak- hai ram, you and your bharta. I’ll see what I can dig up tonight… Usually for eggplant bharta I just call Baluchi’s because they make it 1000x better than I ever could 😉
Sepia Rasoy is a great tab idea
mfunnierthanyou, I’ve been trying to scope more details but no fruit is forthcoming 🙁 Why don’t you drop them an email?
And Sepiarotica for the afterhours crowd..
Bird! Thanks, babe, your check is in the mail!
oh… DD – but the ggplant is such a noble growth and so sepiate, no! to be named the brown-jolly… jolly fine in mah book i say…
in breathlessanticipationforthebhartharecipefromdesidancerithinkiforgottobreathe
Emotionally, I’m pretty much a woman! Hell, I even like men. Can I weigh in on this? 😉
Seriously, yo. I spend all my time in my pajamas eating chocolate and kvetching. I’m not just a woman–I’m my idea of a middle-aged Jewish self-employed spinster.
• The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian writers as well as those based in India.
Great. So the author of this terrible piece of writing wouldn’t qualify because she’s apparently not as South Asian as someone like me from Long Island (/end sarcasm).
• The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian writers as well as those based in India. • All submissions must be in English. • The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to include a variety of genres – from humorous pieces to science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall under the general rubric of ‘speculative fiction’.
First point: I didn’t know that we Desi women could be “extractions”! But look, the conflation of “South Asian” and “Indian”. A woman of South Asian “extraction” can hail from Pakistan as well, or Bangladesh, and other parts of South Asia, but they are evidently interested in NRI’s or “Indians based in India”. Maybe they should have dropped the “South Asian extraction” part and advertised exactly what they are looking for– Indians (or maybe I’m nitpicking).
Secondly, in English? But only 4%-5% of Indians are English speakers. Perhaps they are aiming for the overseas market? They probably have us, Desi women in America, in mind. Or, maybe they are going to target the US market where “ethnic” literature is in demand.
Third point: I really really hope they do not publish the same themes. Being a female desi, I have read mountains of books written by desi women writers, including anthologies, and the same thread runs through all of them: messed up arranged marriages; descriptions of food, cooking and recipes; messed up arranged marriages; getting married off too young; messed up arranged marriages; oppression in select forms:caste, religion, sexist and insensitive husband and unbearable in-laws ; messed up arranged marriages; exotic and spiritual Indian women falling in love with WASP men; and lastly “cultural clashes” that us NRI’s go through as we “straddle two cultures”. Not to say these topics aren’t important, but they need to mix it up a bit, stretch the imagination. Even within these given thematic frameworks aforementioned above one could move around some.
One thing that I am extremely interested in but a few works touch on is Partition. I want to hear real stories of what went on, and what were the experiences of women who lived through Partition, and its effects. But this anthology is searching for fiction.
Re: #20 my comment above, one could very well counter, “Well, Cheap Ass Desi, instead of complaining about the repetition of certain themes in Desi female literature and lecturing about ‘stretching the imagination’ why don’t you submit something?!”
I admit: I am not a fictional writer. I admire those who are because I find it difficult. I am a non fiction writer, who drinks white wine for breakfast and smokes long skinny cigarettes in an ivory cigarette holder.
Thanks for the pointer, Neha. 🙂
CAD:
Have you read ‘The PArtition Omnibus’ – it has plenty of accounts from that period.
hey cheapassdesi – check out amrita pritam and her thoughts on the partition – as added bonus, there’s commentary from someone in the next room who you can probably probe at length 🙂
RCK and Dhaavak,
Thank you for the suggestions. I will check out the Amrita Pritam website as soon as I finish my morning glass of white wine.
hmm..i was called a ‘butch’ in my school years. and it wasn’t a cute term. luckily….i proved that very wrong. 🙂 lol…i thought that term dissapeared!
Shoot, my last exam is this Friday – I’m down to actually flex my writing muscles after having kept them out of practice for so long… I hope I don’t pull something…
And CAD, I totally agree. There are other things that affect us, and other situations we go through, other difficulties we encounter, and some of us feel no conflict whatsoever eating Taco Bell one night and daal chaval another, regardless of who’s coming to dinner.
I’ll bet 1000 rupees that at least one of the stories in this anthology will involve either 1)animals (monkeys, cows, elephants); 2)nature (flowers, monsoon season); and 3)ayurvedic recipes tossed in.
Actually, male Desi writers tend to write more about mischevious and demonic monkeys, while female writers tend to focus on the ever nurturing gai; both male and female Desi writers allude a lot to the steadfast loyalty, majestic love, and gentle strength of elephants. Female Desi writers without fail describe the colorful flora that dot Bengal’s landscape, and the sweet smell of mangoes and frangrant tropical flowers during the monsoon season. Both male and female desi literati always include quick ayurvedic remedies, particularly involving tumeric and gram flower.
“What about those young people who write with passion in their mother tounge.”
Maybe Zubaan should do anthologies for other languages too, and market the translated editions globally?
“Being a female desi, I have read mountains of books written by desi women writers, including anthologies, and the same thread runs through all of them”
I wonder if anyone will send in a science fiction story instead, and if that would help her chances the way submitting a science fiction play instead of a play with the same thread as other submissions helped Gichuki’s chances:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879706.stm
Kenyan writer John Rugoiyo Gichuki chose the year 2410 as the setting for his radio play Eternal, Forever and won the BBC’s African Playwriting competition for 2006…
…Competition judge Ola Animashawun of London’s Royal Court Theatre had the hard task of choosing the ultimate winners from a shortlist of ten.
“Apart from the craft of the writing itself, I loved the aspirational aspect of the play, set in the future when the continent is leading.
“Everything I was reading about people struggling, about economics, about migration, here, it said ‘we can do it’…
CAD,
I was thinking of writing for this, but I think I will write a short using every thing you listed in #27… 😉
Taz: make sure you include descriptions of women bathing every morning in the river.
Taz: If you want to publish something successfully, I suggest that you compile my lists from comments #20, #27, #30.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to bust you with “borrowing” from my criteria that are found in these lists. I am only providing you with the established market criteria for Desi Female Lit. And since this anthology is going to be published in English, it is destined for the global market. The literary formulas that I have laid down for you are a sure-fire method of succeeding, and I want you to succeed.
However, if I find out that you have published “literary criticism” in which you have “lifted” concepts from my eloquently acute and penetrating literary observations on Desi Female Lit, I will publish an expose right here on Sepia Mutiny, and I will contact all major media outlets in America. You will quickly replace Kaavya as the poster child for a shamefully fallen model minority prodigy.
Actually, I am going to do a google search on you right now to see if you have already “internalized” my criticisms and surreptitiously published it under your name…Sneaky punk.
Dramtically, with a loud “Noooooooo…..!” Taz jumps off of the back of the elephant, drops the ripe luscious mangoes from her arms and goes in for a flying leap directly at CAD as he (she?) clicks on the google search engine. “Not the google search engine!” she screamed. CAD screams, and runs to the corner sobbing, reaches for his (her?) secret stash of Hershey chocolate bars, and proceeds to sit meekly in the corner while eating the chocolate. Another Kaavya-like expose avoided, all is right with the world again.
Taz proceeds to go bathe in the river. 😉
Dramtically, with a loud “Noooooooo…..!” Taz jumps off of the back of the elephant, drops the ripe luscious mangoes from her arms and goes in for a flying leap directly at CAD as he (she?) clicks on the google search engine. “Not the google search engine!” she screamed. CAD screams, and runs to the corner sobbing, reaches for his (her?) secret stash of Hershey chocolate bars, and proceeds to sit meekly in the corner while eating the chocolate. Another Kaavya-like expose avoided, all is right with the world again.
Taz proceeds to go bathe in the river. 😉
Dramtically, with a loud “Noooooooo…..!” Taz jumps off of the back of the elephant, drops the ripe luscious mangoes from her arms and clumsily, like the uncoordinated clutz that she is, falls short of directly attacking CAD as she clicks on the google search engine. “Not the google search engine!” Taz screamed. CAD darkly laughs in true bitchy/catty Desi fashion; she stealthily rises and pulls out deadly spiked dandiyas, and proceeds towards a merciful, pleading, hysterical, pathetic, sobbing Taz…..Another Kaavya-like expose efficiently dealt with, and all is right with the world again.
Cheap Ass Desi proceeds to go bathe in the river so as to wash off all incriminating evidence. 😉
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
• The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to include a variety of genres – from humorous pieces to science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall under the general rubric of ‘speculative fiction’.
See Taz, we’ve already got ourselves a story. And our story falls under one of the many diverse rubrics stated above; take your pick– does our story fall under “humour”, “speculative fiction”, fantasy?
mehndi. y’all forgot the mehndi on your hands as you hold the mangos, while riding an elephant and adjusting your embroidered silk dupatta. 😉
Taz: If you and I publish our short story together, don’t think you can jip or swindle me out of my fair share.
I am demanding 85% of the royalty revunues.
Im gonna cosign with Bird on this one. I didnt bother reading the rest of the comments but im sure there are calls to arms there as well. So get on it Neha! (please note that this does not give you an excuse out of drankin with us, if anything you will need this ‘inspiration’).
CAD,
I’ve decided to construct my fiction around a desi cultural blog site and a squabble around two of the commentors in a Kaavy-like debate that ended up being published into a fiction. 🙂
No royalties for you!
-t
Taz, I will totally PACKAGE it for you if you like. hyuk hyuk
CAD,
I’ve decided to construct my fiction around a desi cultural blog site and a squabble around two of the commentors in a Kaavy-like debate that ended up being published into a fiction. 🙂
No royalties for you!
-t
Why you little devious, shrewd punk. I can’t believe you’re going to PLAGARIZE me. That’ right. Oho, look at what Taz came up with, ALL BY HERSELF: a squabble around two of the commentors in a Kaavy-like debate
Let me break it down for you, beti. One of the “two” happens to be me. That means at least 51% that’s rightfully mine. Also, I was your literary agent, which means that if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have had the slightest idea about the market criteria for desi Lit. You are trying to swindle me, “borrowing” from my ideas.
I don’t think so.