By 20 Indian Women Around the World - She Speaks

She Speaks

SHORT STORIES BY

INDIAN WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD

First published in 2019 by

Becomeshakespeare.com

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Copyright 2019, She Speaks

Copyrights (c) cover photo, Brindarica Bose

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ISBN - 978-93-88930-10-9

This anthology project was discussed by a small group of Indian women living in Switzerland in March 2018. The idea was to form a group of writers, consisting of Indian women living in Switzerland, India and abroad based on our personal contacts; and to ask each writer to contribute one story each. The writers whom we would choose for this project did not have to be professional writers, but they had to be women who would be willing to raise their voices and write about what women feel and encounter in modern times, through their short stories. We spread out this idea all over the world and received several abstracts and 20 full stories by the end of September, 2018, from Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Switzerland, UK and USA.

Most of the writers, who joined this anthology project, came from diverse backgrounds like finance, marketing, science, engineering, management, arts and literature. We requested each writer to come up with a unique voice, through a female protagonist. Since, most of us were penning a story (for a book) for the first time, there were occasional hiccups, but with a strongly motivated writers team in placeready to help each other, with friends old and new, all coming together under one creative umbrella, we were able to finish this project well within a years time.

In this book, we followed a contextual editing style, so that the authors voice and choice of words remained intact, with minimal intervention. Each writer, in her own genuine voice attempted to address an issue. Our writers didnt exchange their storylines with each other and yet when all stories came in, we found a common thread - dealing with a womans constant need to accept good and bad, adapt to change, and move on. We believe this theme will also resonate with our readers.

For this book, first and foremost, I would like to thank all the writers who believed in this idea and contributed with their beautiful storiesdespite their hectic professional and personal engagements. This is your book, our combined project! Also my personal thanks to all friends who helped us get connected. Amongst the writers, Nayana, spent countless hours on this book from start to finish and sent her developmental editing remarks to all writers during the review-revision-re-review stagereading and rereading the stories at every stage, Munmun helped us find a Publisher and helped in promotion along with other fellow writers. Poppy planned distribution through book fairs in Indonesia, Sumona compiled all writers profiles and photos over a very tight schedule and with her prompt market surveys and polls she helped the project progress faster, Jyoti helped with her photoshoots for promotion, Kamalika helped with her suggestions overall, Parvathi edited two stories (thanks again), Sameer, Pooja and the entire Publishing team was very professional and supportive throughout and a big thank you to allwho came forward to motivate us and helped us in this project.

The entire writers team voted and decided about every step that we took for this book, from the cover page selection to the title. This book is truly a team effort and we sincerely hope that more and more women will come forward and take this idea ahead and publish more often. Writing is a dream, which can come true, only if we take a step forward. Stay inspired and I hope you will enjoy reading this collection of short stories written by 20 Indian women around the world.

Thank you.

Brindarica Bose.

To make time for writing when one is caught up in the act of living life itself is no mean feat. Beyond the fact that we - the women who bring you this collection - are all women of Indian origin, we also have one more thing in common. We have all been writing stories in our heads or scribbling ideas into our notebooks which we have left on our bedside table just in case the muse invites herself into the backs of our minds at midnight. But, even as our stories have grown in length, in breadth and in scope, we have all been guilty of finding ourselves push our writing to the back of our minds as we have been caught up in the currents of life and swept away in its ceaseless tide. So, yes, while we have conceived of characters during the daily commute, we have also been juggling our day jobs, families, marriages, deadlines and dentist appointments... Indeed we have all been spinning and in fact, continue to spin so many plates that adding another plate to the circus act in the form of writing constructively had not even had the opportunity to cross our minds. Until, of course, this project came along and we all inspired each other to come forward and write.

Conceptualised by Brindarica Bose, a published author and celebrated artist of Indian origin living in Switzerland, our writing project and our tribute to the female voice (which, incidentally is the name of our WhatsApp group!) gave us the platform and the incentive that we needed to write. It was and is and will remain a perfect example of a group of women coming together across the world (because we truly are from everywhere as you can see from our contents page) to support each other, empower each other and hold each other up. I believe that to a certain degree, the authentic voices of women like us dont often make into print. Women like us are caught up in the throes of multiple responsibilities and commitments, we often do not take up the pen and hence we are often written about rather than writing. Indeed, at times, we are written out altogether and this is also something that we wanted to change. We wanted to take back our voices and put our collectively creative feet forward.