Pitch it right

Do remember your first novel will most likely be your breakthrough work. So, how do you wow an editor?

Writing is only one part of the game, albeit the most important one. After finishing your novel, you want to see it in print and, hopefully, make a few bucks from it. In the West that would mean a literary agent. In India, though, those are few and far between. Everything is vested in the fiction editor. This month let's look at the world from the point of view of an editor.

A former fiction editor at a noted international publishing firm recently told me she quit her job to start her own independent imprint because she was unable to publish the kinds of books she was passionate about. The reason — the brief from her bosses to acquire only certain sellers. When she joined the business in the 1990s, publishers still had a midlist which was made up of authors in which they were investing for the long run. In other words they were supporting talent in the hope that the author would deliver a big hit eventually. Hence authors like John Irving and Don DeLillo were able to survive a few flops before writing their breakthrough novels — The World According to Garp for Irving and Underworld for DeLillo. This penchant for certain sellers has now become the publishing norm, certainly for the big boys, as a result of which the midlist has shrunk considerably. So bear in mind that nowadays your first novel to be published will most likely be your breakthrough novel. And that actually might be the second or third novel you write. Very few writers get it right the first time round. Midnight's Children, for instance, was the fourth novel Salman Rushdie ever wrote. After that he was able to publish everything he had lying about in his drawers.

How do you wow an editor? Well, irrespective of the kind of novel you are writing, you have to write one hell of an opening. These are not the days of the Victorian novel a la Charles Dickens where the author could spend the first 70 pages establishing the world of the novel before making anything happen. We live in an age of short attention spans, and a fiction editor's attention span is very short indeed. So if you don't hook him or her in the first ten-to-15 pages then you are in trouble.

Full report here Hindu

Trapped in a quake, they share stories

Award-winning author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's latest novel about people trapped during an earthquake gets new meaning in a year that has seen devastating quakes hit Haiti, Chile and China.

In One Amazing Thing, a group of nine people are trapped in the visa office at an Indian consulate in an unidentified American city. As they wait to be rescued, they tell each other stories -- sharing one amazing thing from their lives. Divakaruni, who teaches creative writing at the University of Houston in the United States, won the American Book Award in 1995 for her short story collection, Arranged Marriage. Her novel, Mistress of the Spices, was short-listed for the Orange Prize for women's fiction and also made into a film.

The author usually focuses on the experiences of South Asian immigrants, but this time, Divakaruni's characters are from different cultural backgrounds and have their own reasons for wanting to go to India.

One Amazing Thing, published in India in April, also explores their will to live and how they respond to a natural disaster. In an email interview from Houston, Divakaruni told Reuters about the genesis of the novel, her love of complicated narratives and her next project.

Where did the idea for One Amazing Thing come from?
“It was when I was volunteering with (hurricane) Katrina refugees who had come into Houston in 2005 that I first started thinking about the whole phenomenon of grace under pressure, which became a major theme in 'One Amazing Thing'. Some of the people I worked with were so angry. Some of them were devastated. But others were able to maintain calm, or even joke about things. I kept asking myself, Why? Why some and not the others? “A few weeks later I was experiencing a similar situation first-hand -- hurricane Rita was coming through Houston and we were asked to evacuate. As we sat on the freeway late into the night, paralysed by traffic and wondering what would happen to us, I saw people around me responding in many different ways.

The pressure brought out the worst in some and the best in others. Some were toting guns, snarling at people; others were sharing their meagre supplies of water and snacks. That's when I knew I'd have to write a novel about this phenomenon.”

Would you describe it as a novel about karma, about multiculturalism or the human will?
“I think it is all of the above. Or at least it questions the notions of karma and what they mean and how much we as humans can control our lives through our wills. Since in this book right at the beginning the characters are trapped by an earthquake in a visa office situated in the basement of a high-rise building, destiny or karma is obviously a force. “But how they choose to respond to this disaster -- that's where human will comes in. The novel is intentionally multicultural in its character make-up.

Full report here Daily Mirror

Moily gets Moortidevi award

Pratibha Patil, the president of India will present the prestigious Moortidevi Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith to Dr M Veerappa Moily, Union Minister of Law and Justice for his outstanding work on Shri Ramayan Mahanveshanam on Thursday, March 18.

Moily is a rare politician-literary figure. An established writer in Kannada, he has authored, to date, four novels, three collections of poetry, three plays, collections of essays, besides his five-volume magnum opus Shri Ramayana Mahanveshanam. He was also awarded Second Father Kamil Bulke Ramayana International Award 2007. He is now penning another epic poem on Draupadi titled Shrimudi Parikramanam which is likely to be published within a year. His two volumes of ‘Musings On India’ is a collection of essays and lectures on Indian history, culture, and society. He has launched a Magna-Opus-Unleashing India in five Volumes. First two volumes ‘Road Map for Agrarian Wealth Creation’ and the second the ‘Water-Elixir of Life’ have already been published.

On of his major novels, Kotta, has been produced as a telefilms in both Kannada and Hindi, directed by M.S.Sathyu. His novels ‘Kotta and ‘Tembrare’ have been translated into Hindi, English, and many other Indian languages; parts of his ambitious epic have been translated into Hindi and Tamil. The English translation of the entire work is currently in the press.

As a writer, Moily is noted for his concern for the marginalized classes, authenticity of depiction, and skilful craftsmanship. His major works are always preceded by extensive research and discussion with concerned experts. Hence his works have a distinct place of their own in Kannada.

Many awards and honours have come seeking him, a few of which are: ‘Al Ameen Sadbhavana Award’(2000), ‘Devaraja Urs Prashasti (2001), ‘Aryabhata Award’(2001), and ‘Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Award (2002). Honorary Doctorate Degrees by Mangalore University (2009) and Russian Academy and National Law School University, Hyderabad have been bestowed on him.