Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Meet She Writes Winners !!

Amrita Saikia

Amrita Saikiaspent most of her childhood days in a small town called Nagaon in Assam. She attended the prestigious Cotton College in the city of Guwahati and then moved to Bangalore to pursue higher studies. She did her graduation from Mount Carmel College and post-graduation from Dayananda Sagar College, Bangalore. Currently, she is working as an editor in International Data Corporation. She likes to read books, write (mostly her blog posts), and paint during her leisure time. She is extremely passionate about food and loves experimenting with new dishes.



Anisha Bhaduri has spent more than a decade in journalism. She is currently the deputy news editor of The Statesman and its coordinator for Asia News Network (ANN). She is also the first Indian woman to become a Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Fellow, and is an alumnus of Banaras Hindu University, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, and Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines. A visiting faculty to the Statesman Print Journalism School, Anisha was conferred the Pradyot Bhadra Young Journalist Award for Excellence by Pracheen Kala Kendra in December, 2011. Anisha has written book chapters commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung on contemporary Indian journalism and politics. In 2009, she won the first prize in a national literary contest for women writers organized by the British Council in India.



Aprameya Manthena is  a graduate of English Literature from Sri Venkateswara College, with a post graduate degree from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. Aprameya enjoys writing, is trained in Carnatic music, loves travelling, and is outdoorsy to a fault. She volunteers in her spare time and shares in the passions and interests of her friends. She also takes a keen interest in cinema, art, and theatre and dabbles in painting. Her quest for higher learning continues as she hopes to undertake research work in the near future.



Belinder Dhanoa is a writer and an artist, with a Masters in Fine Arts in Art Criticism from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda, and another MFA in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester, New York. She is the author of Waiting for Winter and her second novel Echoes in the Well is due to release soon. She has also written several books for children and researched and documented Contemporary Art of Baroda, which was published as a book by the same title. She is currently involved in developing and teaching post-graduate courses in creative writing at the New School for Culture and Creative Expression at Ambedkar University Delhi.



Chitralekha wasborn and raised in South Mumbai. She has lived in Jamshedpur, Hong Kong, Singapore, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York and wandered the rest of the globe observing cultures. She is presently parked in New Delhi, trying to crystallize the lessons of a nomadic life.



Dr Geeta Sundar began her career as a consultant in medicine at BL Kapoor Memorial hospital, Delhi. She has also done a course in medico-legal law. She is a regular contributor to Times Wellness as well as a corporate lecturer. Her published works include Health after Forty and A-Z of Bone Muscle and Joint Diseases. She has also written a work of fiction called Premier Murder League. She is both a consultant in medicine and a writer. At present, she is working in Pune.



Jyotsna Jhabelongs to Kolkata. She has an M.Phil in English Literature and has worked as a teacher, instructional designer, and editor. She is married to an army officer and has two sons.



Prarthana Raowas born and raised in Chennai. After her schooling at Bhavan's Rajaji Vidyashram, she completed B.Sc. Visual Communication from Loyola College, followed by a Masters in International Studies from Stella Maris College, securing gold medals in both courses. She has worked as a freelance content and copywriter and has dabbled in acting and scriptwriting as well. She has been writing short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and just about anything since the age of six. Prarthana enjoys music, movies and yes, books.



Santana Pathakis not a conventional female writer dogged by social norms and values. Growing up and studying in a North-eastern state and working in fields like academia and journalism in the pan-Indian layout, she has seen two different worlds dealing differently with common human values. This disparity has made her sensitive towards the complexities of life. It has also widened the horizon of her expectations and nothing surprises her. Her writings are born from thoughts that keep playing in her mind and feelings that touch her heart with each passing experience.



Sheela Jaywanthas worked in a multi-specialty tertiary care hospital for many years and for half a decade in a five-star hotel. And in earlier avatars, as a librarian, teacher and UNICEF volunteer. As an author of three books, Quilted: Stories of middle-class India, Melting Moments, and The Liftman and Other Stories, as well as a columnist and translator, she found that creative writing couldn't pay the bills. So she wrote three books of short fiction and did two translations alongside her day job. Later, many of her stories found their way into anthologies. When people ask her where she gets her ideas from, she says: 'you'.



Shreya Manjunath hasa PGDM from IIM Bangalore and a BE in Computer Science from PESIT. She has been working as a management consultant. Shreya also writes socio-political satirical articles for a leading satirical website.


A journalist and a poet, Yishey Doma was born in Martam in the east district of Sikkim. Her published works include the highly acclaimed coffee table book Sikkim: The Hidden Fruitful Valley and other books like Legends of the Lepchas: Folktales from Sikkim and Sikkim: A Traveller's Companion. Her work has also been anthologized in Strangers Notes and Other Essays. She is a recipient of the first North-East Poetry Award (Guwahati, 2007) from the Poetry Society of India. Yishey lives in Gangtok and works as a copy editor for the Sikkim Express.