Anupama Krishnakumar

Amish Tripathi is a 36 year old, IIM (Kolkata) educated boring banker turned happy author. His debut book, ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ (Book 1 of the Shiva Trilogy) has been an outstanding success and has topped bestseller charts. Encouraged by this, Amish has given up a 14-year-old career in financial services to focus on writing. He is passionate about history, mythology and philosophy. ‘The Secret of the Nagas’, the second book of the Shiva Trilogy is set for a mid-August 2011 release. Amish is presently working on the third book of the Shiva Trilogy, ‘The Oath of the Vayuputras’. In this interview, he demystifies everything about ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ – from how the idea was born to the actual writing to how he smartly marketed his book. And there’s more too. It’s an interview you can’t afford to miss!

Anjali Joseph was born in Bombay in 1978. She studied English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has taught English at the Sorbonne. More recently she has written for the Times of India in Bombay and been a Commissioning Editor for ELLE (India). She studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. ‘Saraswati Park’, published by Harper Collins in 2010 is her first novel. In 2011, Anjali won the Betty Trask Award and the Desmond Elliott Prize for her debut novel. Further, ‘Saraswati Park’ has been shortlisted for the Vodafone-Crossword Award for 2011 under the Fiction category. Anjali Joseph shares her thoughts on writing, her first book, the experience of writing it and of course, awards.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author and poet. Her themes include women, immigration, the South Asian experience, history, myth, magic and celebrating diversity. In this dream-come-true interview for me, she shares her thoughts on her writing journey, her books as well as some advice for aspiring authors, among many other things. Excerpts.

Abha Iyengar is an internationally published freelance writer and poet. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, magazines and literary journals, both in print and online. She is a Kota Press Poetry Anthology contest winner. In an interview, she talks about her poems, stories and writing in general.