We have great pleasure in presenting the January 2018 issue of Spark themed ‘Celebrating the Written Word’. It’s a wonderful milestone for us as we complete eight years this January! We can’t put in words what an incredible journey this has been and we must say that this issue has turned out as a fitting representation of all the wonderful things we have been able to do at Spark in these eight years! Our contributors celebrate and pay the perfect tribute to the written word through fiction, poetry, non-fiction and art, bringing in some amazing perspectives. We also feature two interviews this month – with Philip John, writer of the popular story blog, ‘Labyrinths’ on Facebook & Bhumika Anand, Founder & Director of the Bangalore Writers Workshop (BWW). Plus we have a delightful list of avid readers sharing their memorable reads from 2017. We have so much in store for you in this special 8th anniversary issue and we can’t wait for you to read it and let us know what you thought of the edition! Happy reading in the brand new year!
In an interview to Anupama Krishnakumar, Philip John, writer of the story blog ‘Labyrinths’ on Facebook, talks about his association with the written word, his writing process and what it takes to run a page that unfailingly publishes one flash story or a poem every day.
Six passionate lovers of the written word share what their reading journey was like in 2017 – their favourite books; lines from books that they loved, connected with; and new authors they discovered.
‘Summer Home’ is Sowmya’s attempt to evoke the feeling of a short and quiet period of time in the midst of the buzz in a front yard during a summer vacation, where a book and the words within were the magical portal to an escape from the scorching summer reality.
Nandita enjoys reading contemporary literary fiction and loves to read diversely across borders and style. Here are the books that stole her heart in 2017.
Suresh Subrahmanyan takes a quirky look at the redoubtable Shashi Tharoor’s verbose conversational methods.
In an interview to Vani Viswanathan, Bhumika Anand, Founder and Director of Bangalore Writers Workshop, talks about what it means to work with writers on honing their writing skills, and what impact this has had on her own writing.
Oscillating between paranoia and the fear of being branded a social outcast, Sandhya Ramachandran explores the current trends of the social game in verse, wondering if the written word as we know it has any place in the world today.
Yayaati reads to quench his curiosity. Lately, though, he has been reading less fiction than before. He shares what he enjoyed reading in 2017.