Partner Poets
Mother Tongue Twisters has received multilingual poetry contributions from writers, translators, and poetry enthusiasts across the world, and continues to invite ‘partner poet’s to contribute to its poetry collection for young readers:
Akhil Katyal
Bio
Akhil Katyal is a Delhi based writer and translator who has authored Like Blood on the Bitten Tongue: Delhi Poems and How Many Countries Does the Indus Cross. He has also translated Ravish Kumar’s book of prose poems, Ishq Mein Shahar Hona as A City Happens in Love. Akhil was the International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa in Fall 2016 and was awarded the Vijay Nambisan Poetry Fellowship for the year 2021.
Anu Singh Choudhary
Bio
Anu Singh Choudhary is a writer, translator, filmmaker and producer. She has written across formats including radio, TV, films and new media, and has written and directed award-winning documentaries and web-series. She wrote and directed The Good Girl Show, a web-series that was adapted into the award-winning play Antardwand: The Conflict Within and is now being turned into a novel. The author of Neela Scarf, a collection of short stories, and the memoir Mamma Ki Diary, Choudhary has translated over 20 well-acclaimed titles from English to Hindi.
Bhavana Barunjee Sabherwal
Bio
Bhavana Barunjee Sabherwal is an arts and culture enthusiast, facilitator, trainer and consultant, based in New Delhi. She has been working in the field of art, music and education as a volunteer for over twenty years. She represents Gallery Sanskriti and Art Ichol in Delhi, and teaches foundation of Hindustani classical music to children and adults. Bhavana is responsible for the concept, copy and editing of art journals at Art Ichol, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in central India. Bhavana is also a trustee of Arts Ananda Trust, which helps develop and promote the creative arts and artists.
Chandrima Chatterji
Bio
Chandrima is an illustrator and content specialist based in New Delhi. She loves to read, eat, watch movies and series and stare at picture books all day long.
Jonathan Koshy
Bio
Jonathan Koshy Varghese is a Ph.D. student in the History and Civilizations department of the Centre d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He is currently on a sabbatical from LSR, Delhi University where he has held the position of Assistant Professor since 2015.
Lalita Iyer
Bio
Lalita Iyer is a journalist, writer and blogger based in Mumbai, India. She is the author of two books, “I'm pregnant, not terminally ill, you idiot” and “The Boy Who Swallowed A Nail And Other Stories”, as well as writing two blogs: Chickwit and Mommygolightly.
Madhu Pant
Bio
Dr. Madhu Pant began her professional journey as a writer and is best described as an innovative educator committed to developing creativity among children. Her writings, publications and non formal teaching methods target enhancement of children’s innate imagination and self exploration through logical, often scientific concepts. She is a recipient of the prestigious N.H.K. Japan Award as writer for the educational film “What is Science?”, National Award for popularising Science and Technology amongst children, Hindi Academy Award for her book “Khelo to Jane”, National Video Film Award for her film on idioms and phrases, and National Award of Best Audio Production for the programme “A peep into the forest”.
Michael Creighton
Bio
Michael Creighton is a Delhi-based poet who has been living in the city for a decade and a half. Drawing inspiration from sights, sounds and smells of the city to find beauty in its chaos, Michael released his book of poetry, New Delhi Love Songs in 2017. His poetry conjures up images of a love found in simplicity. As a middle school teacher, he also recognises the need for free and accessible spaces. Hence, he got involved in The Community Library Project, which seeks to set up libraries across the city, in partnership with NGOs like Nayi Disha. These libraries offer an inclusive space for people to come together and share their ideas and opinions.
Onaiza Drabu
Bio
Onaiza Drabu is a Kashmiri anthropologist. She writes about identity, nationalism and Islamophobia, and co-curates a newsletter called 'Daak', on South Asian literature and art. She has recently published The Legend of Himal and Nagrai: Greatest Kashmiri Folktales with Speaking Tiger.
Pragya Lal
Bio
Pragya Lal is currently a graduate student at the London School of Economics. She is also a bilingual poet, lyricist, writer and marketer. She has been commissioned to perform at the One Billion Rising festival & as a part of the India My Valentine campaign. She measures life in leaps of faith and experiments with words to form alliances with memories, feelings and strangers.
Priyanka Sarkar
Bio
Priyanka Sarkar is a translator, editor and writer. She has translated Chitra Mudgal’s novella, Giligadu (Niyogi Books 2019) and Shivani's Bhairavi (Yoda Press-Simon & Schuster 2020) into English. Her translations of short stories from Hindi to English have been published by OUP, South Asian Review and Women Unlimited. She has also done some translation work from English to Hindi and Bengali to English. As an editor, she has worked with OUP, Random House and Konark Publishers and is currently a freelancer.
Reeti Roy
Bio
Reeti Roy is a writer, editor, and entrepreneur. She previously worked as a Legislative Assistant (Aide) to a Member of Parliament at PRS Legislative Research, a unit of Centre For Policy Research, a think-tank based in New Delhi, India and as a Communications Associate with Pratham, Harvard University's India Research Centre, Columbia University and UNICEF. She runs her own creative content service firm, Aglet Ink.
Sampurna Chattarji
Bio
SAMPURNA CHATTARJI is a poet, novelist and translator with fourteen books to her credit. Sampurna’s poetry has appeared in Indian and international journals such as The Little Magazine, New Quest, Chandrabhaga, Indian Literature (India); Drunken Boat, The Literary Review (USA); Wespennest (Germany), and has been anthologized in 60 Indian Poets (Penguin); Both Sides of The Sky (NBT); We Speak in Changing Languages (Sahitya Akademi); and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry. Her 2004 translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray was reissued in 2008 as a Puffin Classic titled Wordygurdyboom! She has also authored several books for young people, including The Fried Frog and Other Funny Freaky Foodie Feisty Poems (Scholastic 2009) which has gone into several reprints. Sampurna was the 2012 Charles Wallace writer-in-residence at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
Saurav Goswami
Bio
Saurav Goswami is currently a PhD student in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University. Previously, he was Asst. Director & Faculty at the Vedica Writing & Communication Centre. He has been teaching critical writing, rhetoric and communication to graduate students across India and in Nigeria. He has also worked with writing pedagogy and writing centre administration. His primary areas of research are critical multilingual studies and critical language policy with a focus on the vastly plurilingual region of northeast India.
Shanta Gokhale
Bio
Shanta Gokhale is an Indian writer, translator, journalist and theatre critic. She is best known for her works Rita Welinkar and Tya Varshi. Gokhale initially published stories, in both English and Marathi, in various publications, and eventually in the 1970s, she started publishing novels. In 2018, she released an anthology of her writings over the decades, titled The Engaged Observer, which was edited by her close friend, Jerry Pinto. She planned to release her memoirs with the tentative title of Here’s Looking at You, Body in 2018. It was later released as One Foot On The Ground: A Life Told Through The Body in 2019. In March 2020, she released Shivaji Park: Dadar 28: History, Places, People, a book that traced the history of the Mumbai neighbourhood where she lives.
Subhro Bandhopadhyay
Bio
Subhro Bandopadhyay is an Indian poet who writes in Bengali. He won Sahitya Akademi's Yuva Puraskar, (awarded by Govt. of India to young writers of the country) 2013 for his poetry book Bouddho Lekhomala O Onnyano Shraman. He is a young polyglot writer who speaks four languages including Spanish and English. He has authored 5 poetry books, a novel and a biography on Pablo Neruda, all of them in Bengali. His third collection of poems was short listed for the Sanskriti Awards for Literature in 2006. He teaches Spanish at Instituto Cervantes New Delhi.
Zakia Zaheer
Bio
Zakia Zaheer is an Urdu litterateur and writes articles and poems for different publications. The author of a book titled Zindagi Zinda Dilli Ka Naam Hai, she has also translated into Urdu William Dalrymple's The Last Mughul and Qaisra Shahraz's Holy Woman. She was awarded the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award in 2014.
Urmila Gupta
Bio
Urmila Gupta has been editing and translating for more than a decade now. She has worked as a full time employee with Yatra Books and Rajkamal Prakashan and as a freelancer, she has done projects for Penguin, Westland, Vani Prakashan, Scholastic, Juggernaut, Tulika, Teamwork, StoryTel and Dainik Jagran etc. Currently she's handling the translation list (Hindi) of HarperCollins India.
Her expertise is in handling translation projects from English to Hindi. My translations into Hindi have featured in each and every ‘Jagran Bestseller list' since its inception, in the translation category.
She also been associated with TeamWorkArts as a language expert for their various projects including handling media for Jaipur Literature Festival, Mahindra Kabira Festival, META Theatre award, Jodhpur RIFF--this involved independently handling social media pages, press releases and website updates.
Urmila has also delivered guest lectures on translation and editing at IP College, National Book Trust and Bharatiya Anuvad Parishad.