- 40 Renowned Litterateurs Participating in 2-Day Fest
- A Unique Initiative to encourage Book Donation
- Four Book Launches to be a Part of the Lit Fest
- 2000 School Children from North India to Participate
NewZNew (Chandigarh) : The second edition of Panchkula Lit Fest, ‘Get Booked!’ will be held on December 20 and 21. The two-day literary treat with over 40 personalities from the literati world is being organised by Rumour Books India in collaboration with Satluj Public School, Sector 4, Panchkula, which also happens to be the venue of the festival. Young Indians (Yi) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are supporting and outreach partners.
A unique facet of the festival is participation of school children from across the region and is being moderated by two youngsters from the city. Also to promote reading, an initiative of ‘#DonateABook” has already been announced, which involves involvement of 200 institutes in addition to other places where large boxes have been kept encouraging people to donate books, which would be given to charitable institutions. There will be four book launches in the fest.
Reekrit Serai, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Rumour Books India and Founding Director of the festival said PLF 2013 had been a great success and as last year this year also the PLF 2014 is not confined to young writers, but also reaches out to everyone who relates with the concept of the event, which is ‘the art storytelling’–be it entrepreneurs, educationists, bloggers, actors, artists, etc. Serai himself happens to be a writer, having authored several books including ‘As I turn Twenty’ and ‘Impulse- Short Stories’
Radhika Panickar, Founder of Rumour Books India and Founding Director of the festival said, “This year, one whole day will be dedicated towards promoting the reading and writing habit amongst young adults and Children. There will be special activities and sessions for children,” she said, adding that this year participants from over 100 of the top schools across the Northern Region, totalling 2,000 select school children are expected to be a part of the Lit Fest.
Panickar explained judges will include distinguished bestselling authors and there are exciting prizes to be won, including Kindles and many more. Besides, students also stand a chance to be published and there will be a special prize for the top school in terms of number of participants.
Krit Serai, Chairman of PLF and Principal of Satluj Public School said, “PLF is a special initiative by not only the organisers, but the city of Panchkula, and has tremendous support of the administration, for which we are thankful.”
For Classes V and VI students will be asked to design book covers for a particular title. Students of Classes VII and VIII there will be On-the-spot flash fiction contest. The best story gets featured on #FRF, an online flash fiction contest. Flash fiction means having to put down a whole story in 2-3 lines. Inter-school debate on various themes will be organised for Classes IX to XI.
Among the prominent litterateurs to be a part of the festival is Ketan Bhagat who besides being the brother of Chetan Bhagat, world’s most influential writer is himself a bestselling author. Saad Bin Jung is the author of two acclaimed books, Wild Tales from the Wild and Subnam & I and writes for Indian newspapers on cricket and ecology. He is also an expert on Indian television channels on cricket.
Pavit Kaur, daughter of SAD (Amritsar) President Simranjit Singh Mann and author of ‘Stolen Years’, a memoir of Mann’s years in prison after Operation Blue Star, from 1984 to 1989 is also among prominent who will be there. Radhakrishnan Pillai whose first book ‘Corporate Chanakya’ has been on the bestseller list since its launch in 2010 and used as a text book in various business schools in India and abroad.
Megha Ramaswamy is a screenwriter, director and a film producer based in Mumbai who wrote the screenplay for the feature film Shaitan, and wrote and directed the fictional short Bunny. Her short film Newborns, takes a close look at the lives of women coping with the aftermath of Acid Violence in India, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival ’14.
Christopher C. Doyle is an author who pursued a career in the corporate world, having worked with leading multinationals and has written articles on management and business for Indian and international publications.
Ramesh Menon is an author, award winning journalist, columnist, documentary film maker and the managing editor of India Legal, a fortnightly magazine from Delhi. He is the recipient of one of India’s most prestigious media awards, the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Fahad Samar is the bestselling author of Scandal Point. He is a well-known social commentator and has contributed columns regularly to the Mumbai Mirror, DNA and the Indian Express over the past ten years.
Sudeep Sen is an award winning Indian English poet and editor living in London and New Delhi. Sen was an international poet-in-residence at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.
Palash Krishna Mehrotra is the editor of Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays and the author of Eunuch Park: 15 Stories of Love and Destruction. He writes a fortnightly column for Mail Today, and is Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone India.
About Rumour Books India
Rumour Books India is one of India’s youngest and fastest growing publishing houses, and Chandigarh’s only English language trade publishing to have a national presence. Also, apart from publishing fiction and non-fiction, Rumour Books India is at the forefront of spearheading powerful literary campaigns, such as PLF and Candence (In association with Yi, CII and the Indian School of Business).