What is the next project that you are working on?
I forayed into writing while being a
scientist and a techie. So before I had confidence I had written something
worth sending out to even my closest of friends, let alone think of publishing,
I had to build it. This is why I started with writing short stories, having no
idea that short stories or collections, ‘don't sell'.
I was educated of this fact about two
years into my writing journey – two years too late in my opinion for I couldn't
go back and not have these stories that I had. But everyone I approached,
barring Jennifer Lyons of Jennifer Lyons Agency who signed me for this
collection (unfortunately she had to wind down her services and I had to go a
separate route with this, but that's not pertinent to the point here), told me
they liked my plots but wished I had a novel. So halfway into trying to get the
collection of stories published, I started writing a novel.
As fate would have it, the collection
ended up finding a publisher and interest (which has a lot to do I believe with
its core topic becoming suddenly pertinent in an unfortunate way) and the
novel, is now what would qualify as my ‘next project’.
The Afterlife of Midnight Seedlings is
the tumultuous story of Aru and her mother, Manasi, spanning thirty-five years
and two continents. Aru - cast as the lead but often in the shadow of her
erratic mother-is a child-woman shaped into being by the often cruel foibles of
those around her. She is battling memories of a violent childhood when she
meets and falls in love with Maxim Kostylev, a Russian immigrant brought to the
states as a child.
Aru and Maxim bond over their socialist
ideologies and identical struggles, but the very torments that unite them also
keep them from being together and Aru marries a fellow engineer on rebound
determined to undo all the damage done in her life. But paradise remains lost
forever as Aru finds herself in a dysfunctional marriage with an infant
daughter and her childhood savior, her uncle Tukun, trapped in a
multi-generational, political plot of treachery and deceit. To save herself and
Tukun, Aru not only needs to reconcile with her mother and Maxim, but also has
to embark on a journey analogous to her mother's, out of which she had seen the
later emerge insane: a prospect scarier than hell to a woman who wants nothing
more now than to be a mother she herself never had.
If I may dare say, comparable to The
God of Small Things and The Kite Runner, the novel explores critical questions around
roles of women in the society while narrating a complex tale of loyalty, love,
and loss. My next job is going to be finding a home for the novel.
Tanushree Ghosh is the author of the poignantly wonderful 'From An-Other Land.'
Meet the Author:
Tanushree Ghosh works in Tech and has a Doctorate in Chemistry from the Cornell University. She is also a social activist and writer. Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are an effort to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women and social justice.
She is a contributor (past and present) to several popular e-zines (incl. The Huffington Post US, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tribune India, Women’s Web, and Cafe Dissensus). Her literary resume includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines (Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train Honorable mention) as well as inclusion in seven anthologies such as Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). Her first single-author book, From An-Other Land, is on immigration.
She has held different leadership roles in non-profits (ASHA and AID India) and is the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality. She is often an invited speaker or panelist for both corporate and non-profit endeavors.
Buy the Book:
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