Writers of tomorrow

The city recently witnessed a unique writing workshop where young voices from all over the country were brought together to hone their skills

Gone are the days when the library hour would be the most awaited period in one’s school schedule or one would see people lining up outside a bookstore on the day of a book release. The habit of reading is dying a slow, painful death in most parts of the world as technology takes the spotlight. With an aim to bring back the joy of reading, writing and discovering future authors, Scholastic India recently hosted a writing competition for kids in the city.

The Writing Awards is an annual competition that encourages students from classes 4 to 9 to let the hidden writers in them come out and flourish. The competition culminated in the selection of ten young writers who got a chance to be a part of a residency-writing workshop with children’s author C. G. Salamander.

Cozied up in the lap of nature in a bohemian retreat, the budding authors wrote away to their heart’s content as Salamander observed them with eyes full of wonder and delight. “These kids have always been writing. The aim is to give them the space to sit together and write with an audience,” says the author. He believes that writing is a lonely and solitary process. So, providing them with an audience can help them feel more involved. A comic journalist by profession, Salamander also provided the children with a crash course into the world of comics and visual storytelling.

“Stories are fun to write. The workshop gave us a lot of challenges and I loved the giant sessions of suggestions and discussions we had,” quips young Hari Menon, one of the winners attending the workshop. While Hyderabad based Sristi Pramanik believes that the best part of the workshop was the author himself. “He allowed us to spread our creativity and free our minds. He mingled with us very well,” says the 9th grader whose dream is to keep on writing no matter what career path she chooses in the future. Speaking of the challenges the future authors of India are likely to face, Salamander says, “As writers, nowadays, your competition is no more other writers but other forms of media and their storytelling style.” Despite the odds, he is optimistic and believes that if one can hang in there for the first few years, they can establish themselves.

AT THE END OF THE TWO-DAY WORKSHOP, A BOOK COMPILING ALL THE WINNING ENTRIES BY THE BUDDING AUTHORS, WAS LAUNCHED These kids have always been writing. The aim was to give them the space to sit together and write with an audience — C. G. SALAMANDER, Author