Writer Shinie Antony listens with rapt attention and participates enthusiastically in storytelling sessions held as part of the recently concluded Rajagiri 360° Literature Festival, at Rajagiri Public School, Kalamasserry. She later gives her inputs, with suggestions, that the story-tellers appear to find insightful. It comes from a place of experience - as co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF), of which the Children’s Literature Festival (CLF) is a part.
The primary confusion, she says, with literature festivals for children is - ‘who is the audience?’ “Very early on we thought it is best to have only children as our audience. We get down to the level of child, physically that is, taking them along as we go with the activities. It is a period of discovery for the adult and the child. The festival is an entertainment cum education show for children - catering for the child and the child in the adult.” She credits the entire team for its success.
CLF started out as a space for children, whose parents were attending the BLF, it later grew into what it is, with dedicated events and venues, when children’s writers evinced an interest in participating. The first edition of BLF was held in 2012. The curtains go up on the seventh edition on November 9, at Bangalore. She is also the festival director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
Shinie sees her being one of the founders of a lit-fest as a progression from being an editor, much like her moving to editing from writing. She was working with people, reading their manuscripts, working with them before and after they were published, “so it feels like a natural progression taking the written word now to people who are probably not reading or writing as much or they are but don’t have a structure or scaffolding for it.”
She has to her credit novels, novellas, short story collections and compilations, including books for children such as Goddy Tales , Barefoot and Pregnant , Kardamom Kisses , Orphanage of Words , Planet Polygamous , Sunday Seance , When Mira Went Forth And Multiplied , Boo: 13 Stories That Will Send A Chill Down Your Spine and The Girl Who Couldn’t Love. She won the Commonwealth Short Story Asia region prize in 2003 for her story A Dog’s Death .
Her next work of fiction, Can’t is due next year. She doesn’t reveal much, only that it is about a woman in her 70s. Her last one, The Girl Who Couldn’t Love was about the middle-aged Rudrakshi Sen or Roo. “I have always been interested in, the unkindly termed, ‘older women’. This book is about friendship and equality. I have always been a very old in my head, the voice I write in. I have felt like I have seen it all, done it all.”
On being editor for Chetan Bhagat’s novels, she says, “He is one of those writers, among those who I have worked with, who has humour, is pliable and flexible. I appreciate him a lot for the work he is willing to put in. With his first book, Five Point Someone , I told him it was funny but it could be made a lot funnier since it was a campus story – he returned the manuscript having done that. Being witty and funny is difficult, at least for the average writer.” The success that he met - in terms of best-selling figures - helped her gain “a little more confidence” as editor.
Editing is an extension of her reading. “I was reading a lot, it felt like a natural progression to read other people’s works because I was asking other people to read my work and give me feedback so it became like a mutual exchange with writers. Editing is not about talking down, it is about reaching some kind of a commonality in getting a book published. We want the publishing world open to all those who are serious about writing, who are passionate about storytelling and committed to the so-called soft art.”
Shinie enjoys reading manuscripts as much as she likes to read a published novel. She walks a fine balance being writer and editor. “My voice is my voice, I don’t let anyone interfere with my voice and don’t interfere with anyone else’s. What you do, as editor, is get into the author’s shoes and get a grip of the author’s style, language and usage and you just walk down that path. If you don’t do that then there are problems – your voice will be different from the author’s. That is why few people like to be editors because you really have to become another person’s voice and take up another person’s style. And that is an emotional journey, because for a short period of time you have to think like someone else. Only then can you edit the way the person would want it edited. My commitment is to the author. When I write I am barefoot, not trying somebody else’s shoes, nothing is pinching my toes.”
