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Let me come clean here. I am not a good storyteller. Apparently, writing is what I do for a living. In fact, I recently also figured out that writing is probably my ‘Ikigai’. It’s what I love doing, it fills my pockets, I have been told that my work adds some value to my company (which is my world at the moment), and maybe I am not too poor at it either. I write introspective pieces, newsletters, and I edit my colleagues’ articles day in and day out.
But...
... you know how there are these people who can make the simplest of stories come alive to you solely by means of narration! How these Pied-Pipers can mesmerise an audience, enchanting them into following their narrative tropes until they realise they have been all-consumed by a very simple story with a seemingly funny ending?!
Yeah, I am not one of them. If you were to make an impression of me as a writer, I would pray that you don’t lay your hands on one of my stories or don’t ask me to tell you one (even recount an episode from our shared past).
However, I know someone who is a good storyteller, and that’s not even the most fascinating part. The more interesting thing is that she is here at Homegrown to spill the tea on how she does it! If you call yourself a keen follower of Homegrown and our Instagram, I would take beef with you if you said you were unaware of #HGAcademy. I lay my trust on you, however, because I am too excited to announce our HG Academy mentor of the day, Janice Pariat.
Janice Pariat is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories and Seahorse: A Novel. She was awarded the Young Writer Award from the Sahitya Akademi and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction in 2013. She studied English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her work—including art reviews, book reviews, fiction and poetry—has featured in a wide selection of national magazines and newspapers. Her novella The Nine Chambered-Heart is out with HarperCollins India (November 2017) and HarperCollins UK (May 2018), and is being translated for publication into ten languages including Italian, Spanish, French, and German. Currently, she lives in New Delhi with a cat of many names.
For those of you who have recently tuned into Homegrown, welcome! I hope you’re enjoying what we put out there for you, and here’s a little something about #HGAcademy.
At a time when our physical spaces are confined and movement is stifled, the only constant in our lives is our own creativity. For a while, we, at Homegrown have been toying with the idea of evolving our platform into a space that inspires generations to believe that their career paths are not limited to those shaped by our society and that there is a world out there that where creative industries are thriving. Our sole motivation behind this attempt is to shift the needle in the Indian creative industries. This is where the idea of HG Academy comes to fruition.
The sessions at HG Academy see digital festivals, skill-building sessions, new personal & professional strategies and similar efforts towards connecting you to the world of creators to learn and be inspired. The aim is to deep-dive into the creative process, new ways of learning, re-imagination of old ways and experience and learn more. As we spend our days inside our homes and within ourselves, HG Academy with its commune of creative thought leaders and pioneers teach you the basics that you might not get access to elsewhere. We hope for it to evolve into a culture of creation, collaboration, discovery through an exchange of thoughts & ideas.
On that note, the following are Janice Pariat’s resource recommendations if you want to become a good storyteller like her:
Podcast
Books
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, Francine Prose (2007)
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers, John Gardner (1991)
The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Kim Addonizio, Dorianna Laux (1997)
The Blue Lotus: Myths and Folktales of India, Meena Arora Nayak (2018)
Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013) and The Cost of Living (2018), Deborah Levy
Janice adds, “... But honestly, I would add, read far beyond this, read lots, read widely of everything–there’s no better way to learn how to write better than reading good writing.”
Films/Documentaries
The Hours (2002)
Birdman (2014)
La Grande Belleza (2013)
Villette (1970-)
Adaptation (2002)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
Workshops/Talks/Seminars
People/Accounts to follow
For poetry:
For prompts:
If you liked reading this, we suggest you try:
