Testimonials

That was a rather bleak period in my lately taken up career of a writer of blogs. Due to the change in the editorial department, my ‘middles’ were no longer getting accepted by the popular daily I used to contribute to. Secondly, the e-zine to which I was sending my e-blogs had shut down due to financial crunches. At that time, the precious friendship I had developed with one of my young co-writers paid dividends. Sneha Subramanian Kanta suggested that I should try writing to Induswomanwriting. Hoping for a positive answer, I wrote a hesitant letter to the Iww editor Ms Lakshmi Menon. Imagine my surprise when she wrote back saying that she being a fan of ‘middles’ was well acquainted with my name and my blogs and that she would welcome me as a contributor to Iww with open arms. To suit my anecdotal style, she even opened a new section ‘Perspective’. I did send a few blogs to the travelogue section also. Ms Lakshmi even got my books reviewed by competent critic-writers and posted them under ‘Book Reviews’.

My association with Iww fortunately was not limited to blogs and reviews. I had planned to compile my blogs into a book. Prof P.Lal of Writers Workshop who had brought out 3 such books of mine was unfortunately no more. None of the well known publishing houses would accept my ‘once-published’ matter.

When I had almost given up hope of seeing my blogs in the book form, Ms Lakshmi Menon happened to get her serialized novel ‘The Second Choice’ published through Pothi.com. This caught my attention and I ventured to follow her example.

So, when I entrusted my blogs to Pothi.com, Lakshmi (by now a good friend) not only guided me patiently through what was a totally alien process of e-publishing, but she also advertised my book Colors in her e-zine, generously allotting a full page for me free of cost.

It is certainly true that Iww has played a great role in my journey as a writer and I am ever grateful to Lakshmi and her Iww.

I wish Iww a very happy second anniversary. May it continue to help many more writers like me.

- By Vimala Ramu

Sometime back I was frantically looking for a site to upload my short stories and novellas. Being a hesitant net surfer, I was not sure whether such a site existed. It was following the posts of my esteemed co-blogger, Vimala Ramu, that I happened to stumble upon induswomanwriting.com (iww) and thereafter there was no looking back.

I believe every site has its distinct “aura and aroma”. I was drawn to iww because of “it’s essential Indian-ness”, if I am allowed to say so, a characteristic so palpable in its presence and perception. More so, I guess, because of the way the site is administered by the webmistress, Lakshmi Menon, that being associated with the site and browsing through it becomes more interesting and pleasurable affair. She not only takes great care to keep the site updated and evolving always but also interacts with and encourages new writers (through e-mails/ mobile chats) to articulate and express thoughts, get work published and “mingle” with co-writers. In addition to the wide variety of “sections” for the aspiring writers to put up their writes, the site also provides an opportunity for the new aspirants to share web space with the established writers and learn from their writings. Also, one gets to read a tempting collection of articles, travelogues, short stories, perspectives and novels too.

As for myself, iww has given me an identity as a new writer, immense encouragement by way of comments from readers and great friends in fellow writers.

After my self-imposed hiatus, I come back to find that the site has grown substantially in such short span of time! Now there are more categories, more write-ups, more pens (read writers) and newer styles of expression to delve in.

With such continuous dynamic transition growth is inevitable and the site undoubtedly secures a very promising future.

- By Geetashree Chatterjee

- By Sneha Subramanian Kantha