Two years ago, two stories by Anjana Ramachandran saw the light in Magic Pot, a children’s magazine. Following this recognition, her mother Revathi Gopalakrishnan decided her works should be published as a book.
Thanks to Revathi’s dogged pursuit of this goal, 13-year-old Anjana is now a published author. 16leaves.com, which publishes children’s works, helped the mother and daughter realise their dream.
16leaves.com accepted Anjana’s collection of 35 poems, written in English and Tamil, which covered a variety of themes, including addiction to the Internet. Her works will be released in a book form in a few months.
The online platform had been founded by Bharath Parthasarathy, who started the venture after 15 years of working in various publishing houses.
“There are books across genres, written by adults for children, but it is hard to find children’s books authored by children. But children have the creativity required to write books. I know an eight-year-old girl who has written an adventure novel for 5,000 words. There is another child who has written short stories about her visits to parks. The fact is that the larger publishing industry cannot afford to provide a significant space for works by children. So, when I decided to start my own enterprise, I wanted to ensure that my publishing house would accommodate works of children,” says Bharath.
16leaves.com accepts short stories, novels, plays, poems, essays, non-fictional works, paintings, cartoons and photographs by children.
“We also encourage children to give illustrations for their own work. For instance, in the case of Anjana, we suggested her 10-year-old younger sister Akshara Ramachandran, who has good drawing skills, provide the illustrations for Anjana’s poems. Similarly, we have accepted the paintings of Pranav Easwar, a 9-year-old from Pallikaranai. We advised him to try writing a story that could be woven around his artworks,” says Bharath.
16leaves.com also imparts writing skills to children, conducting story writing workshops.
“When we accept a child’s work, we act as critic. We help them structure and edit their works,” says Bharath.
The office of 16leaves.com is located at The Binary Workshop, No. 180, Nehru Nagar, First Main Road, Old Mahabalipuram Road, Perungudi.
Bharath Parthasarathy can be reached at 98409 54954.
