Eminent authors hone aspiring novelists at Write India

It isn’t everyday that some of the most popular Indian authors come together under one roof to share their stories and experiences, inspiring others along the way. What started as a mere competition for writing short stories has now given a new lease of life to 111 budding writers from various parts of the country.

Write India

, a crowd-sourced platform for authors, is an initiative started by The Times of India group. As part of this programme, prominent authors — Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Preeti Shenoy, Anita Nair, Jaishree Misra, Madhuri Banerjee, Durjoy Datta, Tuhin Sinha, Ravinder Singh and Ravi Subramanian — mentored aspiring writers over a span of 11 months in the nuances of the publishing industry.

While the top 12 winners were selected from thousands of entries, the finest 36 stories out of 25,000 that were submitted were published. With people from age 10 to 90 putting their best creative foot forward, the stories touched upon all genres — right from psycho-thrillers to murder mysteries, mythologies, romances and tragedies.

Vinita Dawra Nangia (Director, Write India) says, “The initiative aspires to give India the next generation of writers. The quality of stories received put to rest conjectures that perhaps India doesn’t read or write any more! Some of these participants are as good as, if not better, than our published authors.”

The grand finale, which was held in Mumbai recently, saw the authors indulging in an interactive session with the guests. While actor Swati Das gave a dramatic narration of the winning story 'Palwasha’s Revenge' by Nainesh A Jadwani, the event ended with authors coming together on stage to launch Write India Stories, which has the top 36 stories written by winners.