CHENNAI: La la Land, airport, Ilaiyarajaa, help, and more... can you make up a story using these? A group of 30 adults who attended the Thirsty Pens inaugural workshop at Writers Café, came up with interesting stories with these words. Thirsty Pens is a writing club that was recently inaugurated in the city and CE chats with the founder, Ravi Kiran.
“In this session, I wanted to focus on expanding the participants’ thinking and challenge their imagination,” says Ravi, who works with a publishing house. He voiced his concern on how there are no active clubs in the city. “There are writing clubs in Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune and Mumbai. But I didn’t find one in Chennai. So I decided to start this. The primary idea of this club will be to connect writers across the city, irrespective of whether they are amateurs or experienced.”
How is Thirsty Pens different? “The sessions here will be well-planned and for the first few months, I only want to bring together amateurs and open their minds. The focus will be on fiction writing because it has more than what we think there is,” he shared. Fiction involves history, getting a plot line, and more. “I will be having experts work with the members,” he added.
Director Barath Nilakantan participated in the first session. “My dream is to have a team of really good writers. I think this is a good way to connect with them,” he says.
Although the club is only for adults, Ravi is keen on conducting summer workshops for teenagers.
Ravi, who is working on his first novel, spoke about how he got into writing. “After reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes I wanted to write. An auto driver’s account of his daughter’s murder also ignited the spark. He shared it with me and I realised writing can help cope with the grief,” shares Ravi.
Sharing a few tips on how a writer can sell their book to the publisher he says, “All publishers are usually on a look out for writers who know to market themselves specially through social media. I suggest micro tales as a good option to attract readers. Based of the genre you have worked on, make a quote or one-liners from your book.”