South Asia Speaks, an extensive literary mentorship programme for new and early career writers, is partnering with the literary agency A Suitable Agency to extend support to their writers in understanding the publishing landscape while also giving them the opportunity to pitch their work on completion of their projects.
South Asia Speaks was created in 2021 to strengthen the writing community in South Asia. It is a literary mentorship for early career writers living in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Maldives, with mentors based around the globe. The programme’s mentors help exceptional early career writers develop a major project, such as a book, a translated work, or a series of reported pieces. The programme is completely free, and mentors volunteer their time. Their list of eminent mentors includes Prayaag Akbar, Deepa Anappara, Fatima Bhutto, Diksha Basu, Rahul Bhatia, Isaac Chotiner, Avni Doshi, McKenzie Funk, Sonia Faleiro, Samar Halarnkar, Marc Herman, Tania James, Taran N. Khan, Aruni Kashyap, Mira Kamdar, Nikita Lalwani, Karan Mahajan, Mujib Mashal, Aanchal Malhotra, Sanam Maher, Mahesh Rao, Arunava Sinha, Samanth Subramanian, Altaf Tyrewala, Madhuri Vijay and Mirza Waheed.
A Suitable Agency started in 2020 to represent writers across all genres, and working with them to find their books the widest audiences, across formats and platforms. Suitable Agency represents a broad range of writers, including Prabhakar Aloka, Sarnath Banerjee, Remo Fernandes, Fiona Fernandez, Anindita Ghose, Aayush Gupta, S. Hareesh, Julia Hauser, Radhika Iyengar, Jayasree Kalathil, Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari, Vikas Khanna, Amitava Kumar, K.R. Meera, Ameya Nagarajan, Pallavi Nath, Riva Razdan, Kartik Shanker, Bikram Sharma and Anukriti Upadhyay.
