Vinita Dawra Nangia is Executive Editor ETimes and an Author and Columnist with The Times of India. With decades of experience in Lifestyle and Features Journalism, she specializes in society, relationships and life commentary. Her popular weekly column in The Times of India — O-zone — throws light on contemporary living and relationships.
Vinita is Director of the Times of India Literature Festival and is also the Founder-Director of Write India, one of the world’s biggest movements for crowd-sourced writing — a project she conceptualized and launched to discover the next generation of writers. Three seasons old, Write India has been associated with 31 leading authors and attracted more than 50,000 short stories and launched 200 winners.
She is also the Literary Director of AutHer Awards, a unique initiative established three years ago to recognize and acknowledge the works of women authors. Vinita has authored five books — ‘Love is Always Right & Other Musings’ , It’s Your Life — Reflections on Contemporary Living and Relationships’, ‘Are You Making the Most of Life?,’ ‘ReImagine Your Life’ and a coffee table book on fashion — ‘Fashion Fair -The Journey of 13 Contemporary Designers’.
In an exclusive with Nitish Raj; Editor-in-Chief, The Literary Mirror the veteran litfest director talks about the various aspects of Lit Fests along with the various literary initiatives.
Q.1 In your extensive professional journey, you have pioneered and spearheaded several literary movements, Write India being one of them. How has crowd-sourced writing revolutionized the literary space?
VDN: Not so long back, book writing used to be the sole domain of literary minds who dedicated a lifetime to their oeuvre. It was daunting for anyone not a part of this rarefied world to even imagine becoming an author. Authors wrote and the rest of the world read.
And then, as the competitive publishing world sought ways to expand its base, came a slew of writers who had nothing to do with literature or good writing. But they had stories to tell, and these writers wrote these in the simple everyday language that everyone could understand and relate to. This encouraged many more people to read. When bankers, businessmen and IITians started becoming popular authors and celebrities in their own right, this encouraged thousands of others who had stories to tell but neither the means nor the confidence to do so. Everyone could be an author!
People realised that now to be a published author all you needed was a good story, a good editor and publisher — and the rest would follow. But not many knew how to start. It was to help such people find a voice and a platform that we launched Write India in July 2015 with 11 of India’s leading authors of the time. We gained unprecedented success in the very first year with more than one lakh registrations resulting in 25,000 short stories over the course of the 11 months that the contest ran for.
Write India connected leading, popular authors with their readers who also aspired to write. We gave these aspiring writers access to their favourite, leading authors, inspired them with prompts and pushed them to perform by giving them deadlines for writing their short stories. One short story a month, and at the end of 11 months, you would have enough to publish a book of short stories! We threw the challenge and people picked it up and started writing. Thousands of stories poured in and every month we announced 10 winners. We published a book with the best stories. Today we have hundreds of winners and many of them are published authors.
Q.2 Times LitFest has garnered numerous headlines in its tremendously successful editions. As the Festival Director, how do you manage the electrifying platform consistently maintaining its form?
VDN: Any good thing happens when you do not give yourself the option of not doing the best. The Times Literature Festival is very dear to me and my team, and we put in our best and bring in a lot of energy and positivity to it. I believe when you create something with unfiltered energy, the outcome will always be beautiful. We do this because we are passionate about books and reading and want to bring a thriving, energetic festival of literature to the audiences. And authors who participate in the TLF always talk of a freshness and vibrant energy at the Festival, which they find unique. The Operations team takes as much pride in the venue, the décor and the arrangements for authors, as the Curation team does in the selection of authors and creation of sessions. Unlike many other festivals, we try to give our sessions a sharp focus that will appeal to the audiences, rather than just naming the session after a book and leaving it at that. The selection of anchors for every session is a painstaking job that we pay a lot of attention to. The larger picture is easier to handle; it is in the attention to the smaller details which nobody sees or notices that the eventual success of a venture lies. We spend a lot of time and energy there. The outcome always is a pleasure and pride. Times Literature Festival rocks!
Q.3 Your tremendously loved weekly column O-zone has greatly inspired writers, readers, masses, and classes alike. How do you seamlessly juggle these multifaceted roles?
VDN: Writing O-zone has never been a task for me. It has been an outpouring of the soul that has been a cathartic experience for me always. And as with most soulful experiences, this column has touched the lives of thousands of people. It is a humbling experience to hear my readers tell me that whenever they have had some crisis, or some questions to ask of life, O-zone has invariably held solutions and answers for them. People ask me if I follow any spiritual guru or practice. I always say that I follow no human guru or practice, but this column has been a Guru for me, because it makes me think, reflect and reaches out to provide solace to others, using me as a medium. It is a great spiritual experience for me in many ways and helps me connect with God.
Q.4: How has the literary scene in India evolved over the past decades?
VDN: The literary scene in India has been taken over by numbers. There are many more publishers, more books being published today, many more authors and more readers. As books emerged from their aura of mystique and became available to every level of reader, commercial literature has seen a huge boost, while literary fiction has taken a backseat. Ebooks and Audiobooks have ensured the increased reach of books, while physical books struggle to retain their space. A slew of literature festivals has ensured that the conversation around books and reading continues. Write India is also an attempt towards the same direction – to increase the habit of reading and writing amongst people. Non-fiction, especially self-help books, are more popular today than fiction. The children’s books space keeps increasing as can be witnessed in any book shop too!
Q.5 Do you think the quality of books is on a decline with aspiring writers impulsively trying to create commercial viability for their books?
VDN: Let us say it is more difficult today to sift through so many and pick up a good book to read. When quantity increases, quality is bound to take a blow. But there will always be good writers – those who write for the sake of writing, because they cannot not write. And those that write form the heart and hone their skills with practice and honesty. These authors often are a great find and a pleasure to read.
Q.6 Why do you think the publishing industry is still hesitant when it comes to selecting short stories?
VDN: This has been a huge mystery to me! I keep asking publishers why they do not publish more short stories. The answer invariably is that there are not enough buyers. I wonder why in an era of short attention spans and people with lesser time on their hands would readers not go for short stories? One possibility could be that short stories require very sharp writing skills and perhaps most who are writing these today fall short of the mark. On the other hand, plenty of beautiful short stories in Indian languages are being translated to English and in time, will find many more readers. Write India is a short story contest and has attracted thousands of short stories and helped participants hone their skills in this genre. Many of our participants are coming forth with short story collections. The OTT platforms are also helping give a boost to short story writing.
Q.7 What future do you foresee for the new generation of writers? Any words of advice or caution?
VDN: Writing is a great cathartic exercise and helps in more ways than one. It is natural that we want to share what we write with rest of the world, and there are plenty of platforms to enable us to do that. Sharing our stories and helping others with our experiences can be very satisfying. But I do believe that when we write, we should be writing first and foremost for ourselves. To express our own selves. Never write with the sole purpose of writing a bestseller. Write the best way you can express yourself. And then, I believe every story, every piece of writing has its own destiny and if it is meant to, will find its way into the world. Reading the work of others is a very important part of the writing exercise. Always read. Always write. You will never be lonely or vacant.
