If you’re currently mulling over an idea for a personal essay to submit to our Growing Up Indian anthology, and would like some guidance, here’s a fantastic opportunity! Attend a free ideation workshop over Zoom, conducted by acclaimed local novelist Balli Kaur Jaswal. Receive guidance from Balli and constructive feedback from other participants in order to strengthen the angle, themes and structure of your essay. 

So that each participant receives personalised attention, this workshop is limited to 15 participants. We will select participants based on their pitch ideas (submit up to three pitches) and notify all applicants about their acceptance one week before the workshop. Each pitch should be about at least one aspect of your lived experiences as an Indian woman in Singapore.

Please note that this workshop is designed to shape ideas and not already written pieces. 

Applications are now closed.

The online workshop is free of charge and will take place on Saturday, 13 November from 1pm to 3pm. For consideration to be included in AWARE’s Growing Up Indian anthology, writers must submit their complete stories to the anthology by Tuesday, 14 December. 

Themes

Learn more about Growing Up Indian on our call for entries page. We’re on the lookout for stories that bring out the themes below:

• Straddling two or three different worlds, e.g. “mainstream” Singapore, being Indian, being a minority Indian in Singapore 
• Experiences with language, e.g. studying your mother tongue after school or on weekends
• Supernatural stories or superstitions you’ve grown up with
• “Taboo” topics such as sexual health, desire and sexual attraction, religious practices and beliefs
• Cultural rituals, celebrations and festivals that held special meaning for you as a child 
• Food, cuisine and recipe related tales
• Didactic mythological stories or folklore linked to sexuality, mental health, marriage or divorce
• Unique family histories, traditions, e.g. the multi-generational history of activism
• Belonging, e.g. feeling of connectedness to an idea, a country, a culture or an identity 
• Otherness, e.g. ways in which you might have been marked as different
• Pop culture, e.g. music, film, celebrities, advertisements, fashion, trends or memes
• Travel, e.g. familial impacts of migration, holidays in your country of origin or sending/receiving packages

Other details

1. Your pitch and final submission should be in English.
2. Essays should be between 1,000-2,000 words long.
3. You do not need to have written or been published formally in order to send in your pitch.
4. Pitches should be original content: stories that have been previously published will not be considered for the workshop. 
5. Writers who have already submitted a story for consideration can submit another pitch. 
6. This anthology will prioritise female voices. However, if you are not female and would like to contribute writing on themes of gender or masculinity, you can still submit your pitch.
7. AWARE reserves the right to shortlist and select both the selected workshop applicants and the final stories that will be featured in the anthology. 
8. All submissions selected for the anthology may be edited and our edits will be final. We will get in touch with you if this is the case.