Future Events

Now that the reading's over, we're turning our attention to organizing future events, more particularly the book club whose official selection may or may not be Muhammad Haneef's The Case of Exploding Mangoes.

Aside from the above, we're also working in collaboration with The Paper Microphone to bring out a Desi Writers Lounge corner at the cafe, allowing interested writers to write in any of our four regular columns on the forums: The B*tch Letters, A Writer's Journal, Khutt and One Day, Two Minutes. They will be writing material on our official letterhead, and will have the option of either taking it with them or leaving it at the cafe for it to be featured on our site.

We will create a separate section here, called 'DWL @ The Paper Microphone Cafe' where material written there will be published on our site, as is. Of course, we realize much of the material most especially things like Khutt, which are letters written to receive closure, are extremely personal and may or may not want to be published, so we acknowledge that right to privacy and offer the participants a choice. The important thing, however, is that you're being inspired to write. Even if it's not being shared, it's being written and that's the most we can hope for. However, you can also post things anonymously, so things can be published on the site anonymously and no one will ever know.

Expect to hear more about the corner in the coming days. Meanwhile, our readings will either be held once a month or once every two months, depending on the organizational skills of our management. Also watch out for the book club.

Should you swing by the cafe, be sure to pick up our fliers and bookmarks on display.

The above text is also in our newsflash ticker on Desi Writers Lounge.net. Clarifying any redundancy issues that may arise.

- TPTB

DWL & The Paper Microphone Cafe

If you've taken a trip to our website recently, you'll notice an announcement on the Open Mic nights held by The Paper Microphone Cafe. And if you've been following our reading announcements, you may have noticed our reading will be taking place at the cafe as well. We have formed a verbal commitment with the cafe to host our events there, which currently include readings, book clubs and possibly an invite only game night (if you know someone who knows a desi writer, your chances are great).

Our reading is taking place on March 28th at 5PM sharp with the bulk of the material being presented by our own members. Realizing the guts it takes to read out your own material to a bunch of people you don't really know, our members have stepped up to take care of things. We're hoping, however, that after this reading more people outside of the fold will step forward with their material.

We will be announcing our book club during the reading to gauge interest as well as put it to a democratic vote on what book we should start with, using the shortlisted books we've settled on.

So there are a few events coming up for the remainder of '09. As of this reading, attendees can register in advance to show their support (and attendance). If you have any questions, you can get in touch with us at info@desiwriterslounge.net.

That's it!

ETA: Entirely forgot to mention we're creating a Desi Writers Lounge corner at the cafe allowing interested writers to jot down their thoughts on our letterhead, and either leave it at the cafe for open display on our site or take it with them if they'd rather not share. We'll detail this further in our next post. But to sum up, we'll be incorporating our columns (One Day, Two Minutes; A Writer's Journal, The B*tch Letters and Khutt) on hard copy, along with a folder containing our past e-zine issues.

- TPTB

Reading Postponed

Due to the Paper Microphone Cafe (our venue) being closed on Sunday due to the security situation of the Long March, our reading has been pushed back to March 28 until further notice.

We apologize profusely for the short notice, but were just notified ourselves and thus passed the message along to the general webosphere. The good news in all of this is attendees now have more time to send in their material! So start sending yours in for consideration if you're interested.

Hoping to see you then...

- TPTB

Reading in light of Long March Security

We've had a few questions on whether we're still going to proceed with the reading taking place at F-6, Super Market (at the Paper Microphone Cafe) on March 15, a day before the scheduled march. Currently, our plans remain unchanged but things could swerve around on Saturday if the situation looks particularly dire. Hopefully, we shouldn't face too much of a lag in terms of attendance especially since we were considering discussing future events in this session.

That said, fliers, bookmarks and business cards for the founding members have come back from the printers and things are looking dandy! We've made specific bookmarks for attendees to the book club, so hopefully that should kick off soon enough. We're still unsure on whether we should have a meeting once a month or make it a little less frequent. Although a book a month seems quite reasonable, as long as its length isn't too long. However, if we give our audience a deadline they might well work better in that perimeter of time. This will be, I suppose, a more hardcore book club...not one to be undertaken by the faint of heart.

Oh well, there are a lot of things that still need ironing out and that will be ironed out soon enough.

Meanwhile, event registration has been officially closed along with the deadline for sending in pieces for this session. It was a little disappointing to see that not all registrants who were going to read something out, sent in their material but we have quite a few of our own members in attendance and the bulk of material will be represented by the Lounge. We are hopeful, however, that for subsequent readings we will be able to present writers outside of the fold and thus wholly "undiscovered", so to speak and subject them to our process of working at the Desi Writers Lounge.

Fingers still crossed for a full house on the 15th.

- TPTB

Reading Attendance Surge

Tabulating the totals from the event posted on Facebook with the onsite registration, and removing any redundancies, the total number of people attending the reading is 25. The total is a little over double the number we've boasted on one of our reading, which until then had the most number in attendance.

To be honest, we're a little nervous to cater to so many people and are hoping that not only we, but the event delivers and brings some of them back again if not to attend the readings, then at least the book club and other events we have on the horizon.

Meanwhile, we're always on the look out for writers and the event announcement and alliance with The Paper Microphone has brought on a member surge into the Lounge. However, we're still looking for further material to present at the reading so as a reminder: the deadline's March 12 for sending in material for consideration.

Fingers crossed, people! Fingers crossed...

- TPTB