Latest / The Book Deal / The Takeover: Shankari Chandran on writing for pleasure, giving up on the dream of getting published, and how to create longevity in the publishing industry

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The Takeover: Shankari Chandran on writing for pleasure, giving up on the dream of getting published, and how to create longevity in the publishing industry · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Natasha Rai: This is the Book Deal Podcast, monthly takeover by your host, Natasha Rai.
• 0:14
  Natasha Rai: I'll be bringing you even more debut and season authors as they talk about their path to publication.
• 0:26
  Madeleine Cleary: The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters, which it's recorded on and pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:34
  Natasha Rai: Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil lawyer and author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, Song of the Sun God, The Barrier, Safe Haven and Unfinished Business.
• 0:44
  Natasha Rai: Her fiction explores dispossession and the creation of community, and in 2023, she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens.
• 0:54
  Natasha Rai: Shankari has spent over two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field on national and international program design.
• 1:01
  Natasha Rai: She's based in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband and children.
• 1:05
  Natasha Rai: Hi Shankari Chandran, welcome to the book Deal podcast.
• 1:08
  Shankari Chandran: Hi, Tash.
• 1:09
  Shankari Chandran: How are you?
• 1:10
  Natasha Rai: I'm very well.
• 1:10
  Natasha Rai: How are you?
• 1:11
  Shankari Chandran: Very well, thank you.
• 1:12
  Shankari Chandran: Excited to be here with you.
• 1:14
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 1:15
  Natasha Rai: Um, so you've just been at the Newcastle Writers Festival this weekend and uh, you were talking about a sense of place.
• 1:22
  Natasha Rai: Is that right in your panel?
• 1:23
  Shankari Chandran: That's right.
• 1:24
  Shankari Chandran: With Jock Serong and Ashley Kalagian Blunt.
• 1:27
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 1:28
  Natasha Rai: And I'm curious about how that shows up in your latest novel Unfinished Business.
• 1:34
  Natasha Rai: 'Cause this is your fifth novel, is that right?
• 1:37
  Shankari Chandran: It is my fifth novel.
• 1:39
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 1:40
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 1:40
  Natasha Rai: And it came out four months ago or a bit.
• 1:43
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 1:43
  Shankari Chandran: End of December, 2024.
• 1:46
  Shankari Chandran: That's, so it's really a sort of 2025 release.
• 1:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 1:49
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 1:50
  Natasha Rai: And how has that been?
• 1:51
  Natasha Rai: I, I wanna talk about that in a moment, but how has that last few months been for you?
• 1:55
  Natasha Rai: Since it's been out?
• 1:56
  Shankari Chandran: It's been good.
• 1:57
  Shankari Chandran: We did a, a quieter launch than usual because I'd launched, um, un I'd launched Safe Haven, my fourth novel last year in May.
• 2:06
  Shankari Chandran: So that was May, 2024.
• 2:08
  Shankari Chandran: And then Unfinished Business was December, 2024.
• 2:12
  Shankari Chandran: And, uh.
• 2:13
  Shankari Chandran: I figured booksellers would be sick of seeing me and was really happy to just go very low key, mostly online.
• 2:20
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and then quite a big, um, ad buy campaign for this particular book.
• 2:26
  Shankari Chandran: So there've been posters and so on, which I've never had before.
• 2:29
  Shankari Chandran: It's super exciting, uh, to see me, you know, in public spaces like that.
• 2:36
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and I actually wanna come back to that in terms of that length of time between Safe haven and Unfinished Business.
• 2:44
  Natasha Rai: Um, but for now, how do you feel about giving me your elevator pitch for Unfinished Business?
• 2:49
  Shankari Chandran: Oh my God.
• 2:49
  Shankari Chandran: I got asked to do this at the festival and do you know, it's actually been eight years since I wrote this book between writing it and publishing it, so we can talk about that more later.
• 2:58
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 2:59
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 2:59
  Shankari Chandran: Yep, definitely.
• 3:00
  Shankari Chandran: And I've written many books in between.
• 3:01
  Shankari Chandran: And therefore, um, well not that many, but you know, a few.
• 3:04
  Shankari Chandran: And therefore I have, I frequently just forget what I've done.
• 3:09
  Shankari Chandran: Um, but I shall do my best.
• 3:11
  Shankari Chandran: Unfinished Business is set in 2009 at the end of Sri Lanka's Civil War.
• 3:19
  Shankari Chandran: Amina Fernando, a journalist is executed on the streets of Colombo.
• 3:25
  Shankari Chandran: No one knows who did it or why.
• 3:27
  Shankari Chandran: Was it the Sri Lankan government?
• 3:29
  Shankari Chandran: Was it the Chinese government or was it the Tamil Tigers?
• 3:34
  Shankari Chandran: Ellie Harper.
• 3:35
  Shankari Chandran: A CIA agent is sent from the US.
• 3:40
  Shankari Chandran: Back to Sri Lanka where she was part of a mission that had failed many years before she has sent back to work with those people that she let down to investigate the murder of a of Amina Fernando.
• 3:56
  Shankari Chandran: In doing so, she goes on a journey of redemption and comes to respect this journalist that she never knew and uncover an international weapons conspiracy.
• 4:09
  Shankari Chandran: So Unfinished Business is about the way that superpowers rising, superpowers and aging superpowers play God in the lives of other countries and other communities, and the devastating impact that this can have.
• 4:25
  Natasha Rai: That sounds amazing.
• 4:26
  Natasha Rai: What?
• 4:27
  Natasha Rai: What a great pitch.
• 4:28
  Natasha Rai: And also,
• 4:29
  Shankari Chandran: thank you.
• 4:29
  Shankari Chandran: Thank you.
• 4:30
  Natasha Rai: Sadly.
• 4:30
  Shankari Chandran: Did you see that I could keep, I kept forgetting.
• 4:33
  Natasha Rai: No, I couldn't see that.
• 4:34
  Shankari Chandran: The journalist's name.
• 4:35
  Shankari Chandran: I was like, God, what's her name again?
• 4:38
  Natasha Rai: No, but I was just gonna say it's also sadly re still relevant, the idea of superpowers and the influence they have.
• 4:44
  Shankari Chandran: Right.
• 4:45
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, I think it, it's an interesting one with this particular novel because I did write it, um, the first draft I wrote in 2016, and at the time I was particularly concerned about, um, the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
• 5:00
  Shankari Chandran: I.
• 5:01
  Shankari Chandran: The, the international politics of it had been, had not been interrogated, nor had the, the domestic injustices of it.
• 5:08
  Shankari Chandran: But I was also, I was, I was interested in both, um, and particularly interested in the role that governments had played in that conflict, either through intervention or through non-intervention.
• 5:19
  Shankari Chandran: And what is the culpability of, of these sort of state actors.
• 5:23
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and so I did want to prosecute what happened at the end of the war and the role that other countries took in our, in domestic politics, and found that the thriller paradigm or the thriller genre was the best way to do it.
• 5:37
  Shankari Chandran: And I was particularly interested in.
• 5:40
  Shankari Chandran: The rise of China and its sort of securing of, its of its trade routes and its energy and resource and infrastructure routes.
• 5:48
  Shankari Chandran: And so when I wrote it, it was a little bit out.
• 5:51
  Shankari Chandran: It was out there at the time, like no one was interested in it.
• 5:54
  Shankari Chandran: Um, the sales from The Barrier had not been.
• 5:58
  Shankari Chandran: Particularly strong.
• 5:59
  Shankari Chandran: Um, I think I like to joke, but I'm actually quite serious that sales of the barrier had been driven by my father and my sister-in-law.
• 6:07
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and so, you know, you're only ever as good as your last sales record, and that can hang like an albatross around your neck, which can be very unfortunate.
• 6:16
  Shankari Chandran: Um, particularly because your skills as a writer are maturing as you develop and as time goes by and with each novel you are hopefully.
• 6:23
  Shankari Chandran: And really actually getting better and better.
• 6:26
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 6:26
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and so with this third manuscript, publishers weren't interested in it.
• 6:32
  Shankari Chandran: I let it sit on a, on a laptop for, for many, many years.
• 6:36
  Shankari Chandran: But now coming back into the public space, I.
• 6:39
  Shankari Chandran: The novel seems to be more topical, more relevant than ever.
• 6:44
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and we are adapting Unfinished Business and the character of Ellie Harper.
• 6:48
  Shankari Chandran: So my returning protagonist is a CIA agent with a, a background in human rights law.
• 6:53
  Shankari Chandran: We're bringing her back as a returning series and a returning potentially a TV adaptation.
• 6:59
  Shankari Chandran: And in that.
• 7:00
  Shankari Chandran: Our research for a book that was set actually in 2009 and written eight years ago.
• 7:07
  Shankari Chandran: The research is all contemporary news because everything that is happening or happened in 2009 and happened when I wrote it, is continuing to happen, which is terrifying.
• 7:18
  Shankari Chandran: Really.
• 7:18
  Shankari Chandran: Really.
• 7:19
  Shankari Chandran: It is terrifying and it's really, I think it's, you know, it's the universal that's located in the specific and the culturally and politically specific, the geographically specific.
• 7:29
  Shankari Chandran: That speaks to universal themes and our inability, clearly to learn from our mistakes.
• 7:35
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 7:36
  Natasha Rai: So how do you kind of keep, for want of a better word, maybe hope or the will to keep going because you, you're, you're right about at times heavy.
• 7:47
  Natasha Rai: Or again, want a better word, serious topics.
• 7:51
  Natasha Rai: How does, how do you keep going when what you're writing is almost mirroring what is happening in our reality?
• 7:57
  Shankari Chandran: I think, um, excuse me.
• 7:59
  Shankari Chandran: I'm trying to win myself off chocolate, and that seems to, I'm trying to find substitutes like pickled ginger, so.
• 8:14
  Shankari Chandran: It's a good question, Tash, and I think that I'm inherently optimistic.
• 8:17
  Shankari Chandran: I do, I I do feel that on most days I have a sense that if we just keep trying, we'll be okay.
• 8:25
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 8:26
  Shankari Chandran: And at the very least, all I can control is my own best efforts.
• 8:31
  Shankari Chandran: That's true.
• 8:31
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and to some degree.
• 8:33
  Shankari Chandran: The children that I've brought into the world have some very limited control over them.
• 8:38
  Shankari Chandran: Increasingly less control than I used to have.
• 8:41
  Shankari Chandran: And so I feel a, a degree of optimism and a degree of commitment to putting in the hard work, like a really high degree of commitment to putting in the hard work, whether it be with my writing or just whether it be in how I try to live my life.
• 8:56
  Shankari Chandran: And then other days, you know, I'll smash a family sized pack of mini violet crumbles.
• 9:00
  Natasha Rai: Excellent.
• 9:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 9:02
  Natasha Rai: And just sometimes that's the only way
• 9:04
  Shankari Chandran: I think.
• 9:04
  Shankari Chandran: So, you know, four hours on Netflix later, and, um, yeah, that's how, that's how I manage.
• 9:11
  Shankari Chandran: But I think writing, for me is incredibly therapeutic and it's really part of that process of maintaining hope.
• 9:17
  Shankari Chandran: I write a lot of my anger, frustration, my fears, my existential anxieties, my concerns about injustices.
• 9:25
  Shankari Chandran: I work through a lot of that in my writing.
• 9:29
  Shankari Chandran: And although I don't think that I am necessarily creating social change through my writing, I do feel that I am creating connection through my writing.
• 9:40
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 9:40
  Shankari Chandran: And I think connection is necessary before we can even contemplate change.
• 9:46
  Shankari Chandran: And so to that extent.
• 9:48
  Shankari Chandran: I think there is enormous value in any of us writing, um, and value in what I write or what I try to write about and the way that I try to connect with people through that writing.
• 10:00
  Natasha Rai: For sure.
• 10:01
  Natasha Rai: And especially when you said about anyone, you know, everyone's writing because people are writing different stories or different perspectives, but actually there's always a commonality in the human experience, right?
• 10:11
  Natasha Rai: So even if somebody's writing about.
• 10:14
  Natasha Rai: A culture or an experience or even a genre they're not familiar with.
• 10:18
  Natasha Rai: There are points of connection always into the story or a character or an experience that character is undergoing or going through always.
• 10:26
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 10:28
  Natasha Rai: Um, so you mentioned earlier The Barrier.
• 10:30
  Natasha Rai: Is that your first novel in Australia?
• 10:32
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, it was the first one that was published in Australia, but it was actually my second novel that I wrote.
• 10:37
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 10:38
  Natasha Rai: Because you've had, uh.
• 10:40
  Natasha Rai: Is interesting.
• 10:41
  Natasha Rai: The right word.
• 10:42
  Natasha Rai: Start to your publication,
• 10:43
  Shankari Chandran: can use any word you wanna use.
• 10:45
  Shankari Chandran: Tash, you're a wonderful, brilliant writer.
• 10:48
  Shankari Chandran: I'd be honored to receive any word from you.
• 10:51
  Natasha Rai: Stop it.
• 10:51
  Natasha Rai: Anyway.
• 10:52
  Natasha Rai: Um, I'm curious about your publishing journey, uh, because I know, and one of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast is how you can come to a point of getting traditionally published.
• 11:03
  Natasha Rai: And there are so many ways in.
• 11:05
  Natasha Rai: But I know that yours was also a bit of a different beginning to where you are now.
• 11:11
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, definitely.
• 11:13
  Shankari Chandran: Um, when I started out I had, I wrote a manuscript called Song of the Sun God, which was about three generations of Sri Lankan, Tamil Australian women, and the choices that they make to survive Sri Lanka Civil War.
• 11:27
  Shankari Chandran: So it is in part set in Sri Lanka and in part set in Australia.
• 11:32
  Shankari Chandran: And the feedback that I got when I queried it with agents and publishers was that it was well written, interesting characters, strong language.
• 11:40
  Shankari Chandran: Um.
• 11:42
  Shankari Chandran: But that the novel wouldn't sell in Australia, that it wasn't Australian enough to be published here.
• 11:47
  Shankari Chandran: And this was some, um, 10 years ago.
• 11:51
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Natasha Rai: I was just about to ask you what year, so you wrote Unfinished Business in 2017, you said.
• 11:57
  Natasha Rai: So had you already written Song of the Sun?
• 12:00
  Natasha Rai: God, at that point?
• 12:01
  Shankari Chandran: Point I had, yeah.
• 12:01
  Shankari Chandran: I had, yes.
• 12:02
  Shankari Chandran: So I had written it.
• 12:04
  Shankari Chandran: And then spent a year struggling to find a publisher in Australia.
• 12:07
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 12:08
  Shankari Chandran: And eventually, uh, sent it to a publisher in Sri Lanka and published it with him.
• 12:15
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 12:15
  Shankari Chandran: And that was a very small publishing house.
• 12:19
  Shankari Chandran: And you know, it's interesting.
• 12:21
  Shankari Chandran: My husband and I both have very mixed and different.
• 12:25
  Shankari Chandran: Perspectives on that particular publisher because from her's, from my husband's perspective, he feels that that was the getting that book published was what unlocked me to.
• 12:37
  Shankari Chandran: Okay.
• 12:37
  Shankari Chandran: 'cause I really, there's this thing, particularly with your first novel, I feel I was so, you know, it was really my first born and I couldn't see past anything in life until that novel had been published.
• 12:50
  Shankari Chandran: And I was very new, um, and ignorant of the publishing industry.
• 12:55
  Shankari Chandran: And what I eventually realized that is that publishing can take months or years.
• 13:03
  Shankari Chandran: Whether it be traditional or non-traditional publishing, it can take a very, very long time and sometimes not at all.
• 13:10
  Natasha Rai: Mm.
• 13:10
  Shankari Chandran: And the key for me that I eventually learned was to, to keep writing.
• 13:16
  Shankari Chandran: So whenever I have written something, I am almost immediately, I will allow myself to rest, but I'm almost immediately searching my mind and the world for the next story because the pipeline of work and the body of work.
• 13:32
  Shankari Chandran: It can take, I mean, it can take a book two years, even after you sign a publishing contract to get it onto shelves.
• 13:40
  Shankari Chandran: So you want to have your next novel or research ideas, crappy first drafts in motion.
• 13:50
  Shankari Chandran: You should not be waiting.
• 13:52
  Shankari Chandran: To see that book on a shelf before you then begin the next step.
• 13:56
  Shankari Chandran: Now, in reality, writers, once you start writing, you love writing so much, you can't stop.
• 14:01
  Shankari Chandran: Right.
• 14:01
  Shankari Chandran: Well, I certainly, once I began, I became addicted and that was it.
• 14:04
  Shankari Chandran: I developed a very unhealthy relationship with my laptop, um, but nothing illegal, rest assured.
• 14:12
  Shankari Chandran: Um, but I think at, so I will, I'm unlikely to ever stop writing, even if I stop publishing, but with my first novel.
• 14:21
  Shankari Chandran: Everything felt so contingent on seeing that novel published.
• 14:25
  Shankari Chandran: Everything was after I get published or after I get an agent, and actually you can't live life like that because you have no control over that.
• 14:35
  Shankari Chandran: So with this particular first novel, my husband is delighted that it went to the Sri Lankan publisher and he was able to unlock effectively what became the rest of my career.
• 14:46
  Shankari Chandran: That experience was more challenging because it was a small publisher.
• 14:52
  Shankari Chandran: I did not know enough, um, about myself or have enough confidence within myself to really negotiate that contract, so there was no negotiation.
• 15:03
  Shankari Chandran: I know so much more now.
• 15:05
  Shankari Chandran: I know that there are standard terms that are on the ASA website.
• 15:09
  Shankari Chandran: I will settle for nothing less than that.
• 15:11
  Shankari Chandran: Those terms as they are, require a huge amount of industry advocacy on behalf of writers.
• 15:16
  Shankari Chandran: You know, they're not great for writers, but they are what they are.
• 15:19
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 15:19
  Shankari Chandran: And that's the industry practice.
• 15:21
  Shankari Chandran: I won't accept less than that, but for my first publishing contract I did.
• 15:25
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 15:26
  Shankari Chandran: And I spent years with this particular small publisher trying to navigate that relationship and.
• 15:35
  Shankari Chandran: In retrospect, and I've said this before in Emily Maguire's fabulous class, which I think now Ashley runs the year of the novel, that I, in retrospect, felt better off with no publisher than a bad publisher.
• 15:51
  Shankari Chandran: But with my first novel that was very hard to understand and very hard to see.
• 15:57
  Natasha Rai: And it's, it's also very hard to have confidence in that statement when you are desperate to have your first novel out in the world.
• 16:03
  Shankari Chandran: 100%.
• 16:04
  Shankari Chandran: There is nothing like the desperation of that, of wanting, yearning for that first novel to be published.
• 16:12
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 16:13
  Shankari Chandran: So after that novel went to Sri Lanka was published there, I wrote The Barrier, but I, I'd finished The Barrier and at some point in the sort of querying process of.
• 16:23
  Shankari Chandran: Of Song of the Sun God and I was getting this feedback, uh, about how the novel wouldn't sell in Australia.
• 16:30
  Shankari Chandran: And so I took The Barrier, which was almost completed, and I changed the protagonist from a brown, south Asian, um, sort of secret agent, got a thing for secret agents.
• 16:43
  Natasha Rai: You do
• 16:43
  Shankari Chandran: And, and I changed them from brown to white and that novel found an Australian publisher quite quickly and that novel went out into the world.
• 16:56
  Shankari Chandran: And again, it's interesting what you learn in retrospect or from that experience, but I was only need, I was really only at that early learning stage of how does one build a brand?
• 17:08
  Shankari Chandran: I.
• 17:08
  Shankari Chandran: What is social media?
• 17:11
  Shankari Chandran: Um, you know, where do I need to show up at?
• 17:14
  Shankari Chandran: Mm.
• 17:15
  Shankari Chandran: How do I sell myself?
• 17:17
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 17:17
  Natasha Rai: All the building blocks of longevity as well.
• 17:20
  Shankari Chandran: Exactly.
• 17:21
  Shankari Chandran: And, but as a writer, I'm, you know, deeply introverted.
• 17:24
  Shankari Chandran: I, by nature would happily stay in my pajamas in my room all day, just writing books and occasionally throwing food at the children.
• 17:32
  Natasha Rai: And I think your, um, out of office even says that I'm in my pajamas.
• 17:36
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, yes, it does.
• 17:38
  Shankari Chandran: Don't disturb me.
• 17:39
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 17:41
  Shankari Chandran: Um, so I take my writing very seriously and I just, you know, had to learn how to.
• 17:49
  Shankari Chandran: See that sort of business development side for what it is, it's business development and you have to do it to secure the longevity of your career, or at least to assist the longevity of your career.
• 18:00
  Natasha Rai: So on the way, as you were learning these lessons, were you learning them through that kind of direct experience?
• 18:05
  Natasha Rai: Or at that point had you started to cultivate a community or an agent or, yeah.
• 18:10
  Shankari Chandran: Um.
• 18:11
  Shankari Chandran: I put everything really, I was very fortunate.
• 18:14
  Shankari Chandran: I had, I had an agent with me, um, from the time that I finished Song of the.
• 18:22
  Shankari Chandran: I was so fortunate to become a member of writing New South Wales.
• 18:27
  Shankari Chandran: I loved their work enough to eventually join their board.
• 18:31
  Shankari Chandran: Um, but at the time I was an emerging writer, not even emerging, and I benefited enormously, not just from their courses, but from the community that they have at, at Callan Park, at the, the actual location of writing New South Wales.
• 18:46
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 18:46
  Shankari Chandran: Writing is very solitary and literary fiction I think is particularly solitary and we're not writers of literary fiction are probably even more.
• 18:55
  Shankari Chandran: Solitary than the average writer.
• 18:58
  Shankari Chandran: Whereas the crime writers, for example, are just, they seem to be partying hard.
• 19:02
  Shankari Chandran: They're always together, they're always going on writing retreats together.
• 19:06
  Shankari Chandran: It's, it's just a thing, right?
• 19:09
  Shankari Chandran: Whereas for me, I'm like, the last thing I want is to be on a retreat with anybody.
• 19:14
  Shankari Chandran: Um, the, and so I look at their sort of Instagram sites.
• 19:19
  Shankari Chandran: Uh, with confusion and, um, and excitement for them because they're clearly so excited by each other.
• 19:27
  Shankari Chandran: Um, but we still, as literary fiction writers.
• 19:30
  Shankari Chandran: Need a, a community, need people, need friends.
• 19:34
  Shankari Chandran: Because I found it was only other writers that understood the sheer agony of what I was going through.
• 19:42
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 19:43
  Shankari Chandran: And the insecurity of it.
• 19:45
  Shankari Chandran: The soul destroying self-esteem, crushing reality of reject after rejection.
• 19:54
  Shankari Chandran: The way that the rest of the world views your writing?
• 19:57
  Shankari Chandran: It is and has been for many years.
• 20:00
  Shankari Chandran: My work, I know, has been regarded as a hobby.
• 20:04
  Shankari Chandran: You know, Shankari's got this quirky little hobby.
• 20:07
  Shankari Chandran: Um, it's the, the, the definition of career.
• 20:12
  Shankari Chandran: Work in our contemporary society and perhaps in all societies, is largely ascribed to those activities that generate an income.
• 20:21
  Shankari Chandran: Writing does not generate an income for a very long time, and when it does, most writers, even the successful ones, you know, considered commercially successful or awarded ones, don't make enough to.
• 20:38
  Shankari Chandran: It is, it takes a very long time for the, the task, the activity of writing to be reflected back to you as work, and that's hard to carry.
• 20:52
  Shankari Chandran: You know, I come from a family and a community where work is everything.
• 20:56
  Shankari Chandran: You are really valued for your work ethic and your capacity to work and your and output, and your ability to take care of your family writing.
• 21:07
  Shankari Chandran: Not understood and does not meet many of those KPIs.
• 21:10
  Natasha Rai: No, it doesn't.
• 21:11
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and yet it is this thing that is so profoundly, deeply, intrinsically important to me.
• 21:18
  Shankari Chandran: It's the thing by which I define myself really, or even if it's not necessarily a definition that feels quite grandiose.
• 21:27
  Shankari Chandran: It's the thing that gives me such purpose and joy and it's not understood.
• 21:36
  Shankari Chandran: Really, except for other writers.
• 21:39
  Shankari Chandran: And so that writing community and being able to say, does this look right to you?
• 21:44
  Shankari Chandran: Does this agreement look right to you?
• 21:46
  Shankari Chandran: What should I be doing?
• 21:48
  Shankari Chandran: You are going to that festival.
• 21:49
  Shankari Chandran: Should I be going to that festival?
• 21:51
  Shankari Chandran: And the writing community is such a beautiful community.
• 21:55
  Natasha Rai: It really is.
• 21:56
  Shankari Chandran: We help each other.
• 21:58
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 21:59
  Shankari Chandran: You know, we, we recommend each other's books.
• 22:01
  Shankari Chandran: We read each other's drafts.
• 22:03
  Shankari Chandran: We get each other invited to things.
• 22:06
  Shankari Chandran: We social media, the shit out of each other because we, we know that we rise together.
• 22:12
  Shankari Chandran: It isn't a, um, you know, it's a finite pie as such.
• 22:17
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 22:18
  Natasha Rai: 'cause the more that we help come in and get that recognition, the more space there is.
• 22:25
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 22:25
  Natasha Rai: The more and more stories we can tell.
• 22:27
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, we're breaking and expanding those horizons together and that's really, really rewarding.
• 22:34
  Shankari Chandran: I love, my favorite part of a writer's festival is the green room.
• 22:37
  Shankari Chandran: Um, I mean, I just sort of show up just for the green room and then, and then leave, but it's probably unethical.
• 22:44
  Shankari Chandran: Um, so yes.
• 22:46
  Shankari Chandran: So it's a wonderful community.
• 22:48
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 22:48
  Shankari Chandran: And by making lots mistakes the other way.
• 22:52
  Natasha Rai: And also the important thing about making mistakes is they don't have to be catastrophic.
• 22:57
  Natasha Rai: 'cause you know, a lot of emerging writers, like even I remember, it wasn't that long ago that I was terrified that if I submit to a publisher or an agent and the, it's not ready, or I just get one shot and that's it, I've ruined it forever.
• 23:10
  Natasha Rai: And that's not actually true.
• 23:12
  Natasha Rai: Unless you're, unless you're, you know, you're really mean to them or you are whatever.
• 23:16
  Natasha Rai: Like if you're behaving badly, that's different.
• 23:18
  Natasha Rai: But if you're just having a, a go or you're trying, then nothing is really that catastrophic that you can do.
• 23:24
  Natasha Rai: That means the door is shut forever.
• 23:25
  Natasha Rai: Right?
• 23:25
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:27
  Shankari Chandran: Absolutely.
• 23:27
  Shankari Chandran: And I think there's, so, particularly now, it's been, I've been writing since, um, 2012 when I started Song of the Sun God in 2012.
• 23:37
  Shankari Chandran: And my career is very different from other people's.
• 23:40
  Shankari Chandran: I, I look at the sort of debut bestseller with a combination of, um, admiration and envy because it's a, a much faster track to a better place.
• 23:54
  Shankari Chandran: And at the same time, that's not been my journey.
• 23:56
  Shankari Chandran: My journey is my journey.
• 23:57
  Shankari Chandran: And it's taken 13 years.
• 24:01
  Shankari Chandran: I started writing my first novel exactly in April, 2012.
• 24:06
  Shankari Chandran: It's April, 2025 now.
• 24:09
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 24:09
  Shankari Chandran: So that is 13 years of writing.
• 24:12
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and it's been hard and, and great.
• 24:23
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Hi, I'm Gisela Ervin-Ward and my upper middle grade novel, True South, published by Midnight Sun Publishing is out now.
• 24:30
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: It's not every day you crash your boat into a house.
• 24:32
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: As Nell South Nicholas hung over the gun over her sailboat to inspect the damage.
• 24:36
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: She wondered why that day had to be today when Nell crashes a sailboat into a submerged house in the reservoir, the last thing she expects to find is treasure and a secret that could change everything.
• 24:45
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: 12-year-old Nell lives on a farm in Central Victoria where two things are certain.
• 24:49
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Sailing is a favorite thing in the world, and the Souths and the Wilsons absolutely do not get along.
• 24:55
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: So in the Sunken House, turns out to be Nell's family's old home, and it might have something to do with the missing family heirlooms that both the Souths and the Wilsons want.
• 25:03
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: The only person who can help solve the mystery is Charlie Wilson, aka the enemy and things get complicated fast.
• 25:10
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: As Nell and Charlie warily team up, dig into the past and hunt for the missing heirlooms, old and new secrets threatened to break their fragile alliance.
• 25:18
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Friendships get tested, family history gets messy, and Nell starts wondering if being a South really means what she thought it did.
• 25:25
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Can two girls caught in the middle of a feud change the story or the adults ensure that they end up repeating it?
• 25:31
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: With plenty of the type of action that's part of rural kids' lives.
• 25:34
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: True South explores themes of coming to terms with the past young teenagers navigating friendship changes for the first time.
• 25:40
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Sailing, living in rural Australia, and children's connection to family and landscape.
• 25:44
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: Great.
• 25:45
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: For nine or 13 year olds.
• 25:46
  Gisela Ervin-Ward: True South by Gisela Ervin-Ward is out now.
• 25:53
  Natasha Rai: So then you, we were up to The Barrier and you said, you mentioned earlier that it.
• 25:57
  Natasha Rai: Didn't sell well particularly well?
• 25:59
  Natasha Rai: No.
• 26:00
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 26:00
  Shankari Chandran: It did not, it was optioned for television.
• 26:03
  Shankari Chandran: Um, they had a few cracks at pitching it the producers and then COVID hit and so then plague dramas, unless you were rewatching contagion with Matt Damon Plague dramas were sort of, you know, put on pause, which was fine, but I.
• 26:23
  Shankari Chandran: Then wrote I in the end, you know, as we're sort of trucking along, I wrote Unfinished Business.
• 26:29
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 26:30
  Shankari Chandran: That, um, did not get very far with publishers because of the sales of The Barrier.
• 26:35
  Shankari Chandran: At that point, I really should have stopped writing professionally, I suppose I.
• 26:40
  Natasha Rai: Well, I'm glad you didn't.
• 26:41
  Shankari Chandran: Sensible.
• 26:41
  Shankari Chandran: Had I been more sensible?
• 26:43
  Shankari Chandran: Um, but I did think that my writing, my publishing career was over.
• 26:47
  Shankari Chandran: I did think that for me, publishing was probably done and that I would have to come to terms with that.
• 26:53
  Shankari Chandran: And so I had a sense of grief around trying to make myself let go of this dream.
• 26:59
  Shankari Chandran: Career, not so much the dream of writing because you'll always write, I will always write, but the dream of a career of being a published author.
• 27:09
  Shankari Chandran: And so then I thought, well, I'll, I'll write the book.
• 27:12
  Shankari Chandran: I've always.
• 27:13
  Shankari Chandran: Wanted to write.
• 27:14
  Shankari Chandran: I'd been toying with this idea of a book in a nursing home where I used to go visit my grandmother.
• 27:19
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and my beautiful was still alive actually, when I was writing it.
• 27:24
  Shankari Chandran: I started it in 2019.
• 27:27
  Shankari Chandran: I thought I would write something a bit more whimsical, and then I just kept getting pulled back to the idea of exploring race.
• 27:34
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 27:34
  Shankari Chandran: And I figured no one's going to publish this novel.
• 27:37
  Shankari Chandran: Just my dad, my sister-in-law, and my cousins will read it.
• 27:40
  Shankari Chandran: Therefore I can write freely and I can actually write about race in the way that I think and feel and have, and have observed race.
• 27:48
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and so I wrote Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, and that was a really, that was a, a career changing novel for me.
• 27:57
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 27:57
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and you know, Tash, every novel that I've written, so by that, that was actually my fourth manuscript.
• 28:04
  Natasha Rai: Mm.
• 28:06
  Shankari Chandran: Manuscript two, three, and four I.
• 28:10
  Shankari Chandran: When I finished writing them, I would lean into the manuscript.
• 28:16
  Shankari Chandran: Please, please.
• 28:18
  Shankari Chandran: That brings Song of the Sun God Home.
• 28:21
  Shankari Chandran: Because what I really wanted in my heart was for this first novel that was about our history and our culture and our war and our people.
• 28:29
  Shankari Chandran: I wanted that novel published in my home, Australia.
• 28:33
  Shankari Chandran: Mm.
• 28:34
  Shankari Chandran: So I sent Chai Time into the world with the same gentle prayer.
• 28:39
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:40
  Shankari Chandran: And Robert Watkins at Ultimo picked it up, um, within a month of it being queried.
• 28:47
  Shankari Chandran: And he has been a dream to work with.
• 28:51
  Shankari Chandran: And together we have since published Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens.
• 28:56
  Shankari Chandran: He then republished, he bought the rights to Song of the Sun God and Republished Song of the Sun God.
• 29:04
  Shankari Chandran: He published Unfinished Business before that, obviously Safe Haven.
• 29:10
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and I will republish The Barrier with him when I have the time and energy mm-hmm.
• 29:17
  Shankari Chandran: To change my protagonist from white back to brown.
• 29:21
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 29:21
  Natasha Rai: And probably listeners, and just for listeners who are unaware of how big, how significant Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens has been for you, it won the Miles Franklin Award in 2023, and that was huge and congratulations again.
• 29:37
  Natasha Rai: That must have been, and it brought Song of the Sun God, home, as you say.
• 29:41
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 29:42
  Natasha Rai: It must have, I imagine, just opened so many new opportunities for you.
• 29:47
  Natasha Rai: Is that what it felt like?
• 29:49
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 29:49
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 29:49
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 29:50
  Shankari Chandran: It, it definitely felt like that and still feels like that.
• 29:53
  Shankari Chandran: I still feel so grateful to that novel, um, and to the path that it's taken in the way that it has then opened up the rest of my career or, or opened up a career for me.
• 30:07
  Natasha Rai: Mm.
• 30:07
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and so.
• 30:09
  Shankari Chandran: Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens has been optioned for television.
• 30:13
  Shankari Chandran: We're working on the adaptation with Shakthidharan, um, and Mithila Gupta and Aquarius Films.
• 30:20
  Shankari Chandran: Shakthidharan wrote Jungle and the Sea.
• 30:23
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 30:23
  Natasha Rai: I'm a huge fan of his as, as I'm of Mithila Gupta too.
• 30:26
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, yes, yes.
• 30:28
  Shankari Chandran: I too, I'm a big fan of both.
• 30:30
  Shankari Chandran: Nearly fell off my chair when they were the suggested creatives.
• 30:33
  Shankari Chandran: Um.
• 30:34
  Shankari Chandran: And so we're working on that together.
• 30:36
  Shankari Chandran: And Shakthi is lead writer.
• 30:38
  Shankari Chandran: Mithila is story producer.
• 30:40
  Shankari Chandran: Amazing.
• 30:41
  Shankari Chandran: And it's been a really great experience so far.
• 30:44
  Shankari Chandran: Aquarius Films has been beautiful to work with and I think it will, you know, these things just take their own time.
• 30:52
  Shankari Chandran: So that's, that's that project.
• 30:54
  Shankari Chandran: And then obviously, um, well, not obviously, but Unfinished Business is also being adapted for television with Photo Play.
• 31:03
  Shankari Chandran: And the, the, the profile on Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens has this halo effect on my other novels and my other potential adaptations.
• 31:14
  Shankari Chandran: And so there has been again.
• 31:17
  Shankari Chandran: A much bigger spotlight on the potential TV adaptation of Unfinished Business and a very significant and helpful amount of interest in it.
• 31:27
  Natasha Rai: And you know, Shankari, it just goes to show, and I'm not talking about, you know, if you write whatever you want, you'll necessarily win an award or open doors like that.
• 31:37
  Natasha Rai: But what that speaks to me is in that moment of that kind of that rollercoaster where you're right at the bottom and you thought, I'm done with this career, but I'm going to keep riding.
• 31:46
  Natasha Rai: In a way it frees you to write the story that was felt true at the time, and it was spoke to you in a very different way because.
• 31:55
  Natasha Rai: Sometimes writers when they're trying to get published might follow.
• 32:02
  Natasha Rai: It's not a trap, but they might follow a part that they feel they have to write in a certain way or for a certain audience as opposed to writing for themselves.
• 32:08
  Natasha Rai: And actually, I.
• 32:09
  Natasha Rai: Writing for yourself brings you the greatest pleasure, firstly and maybe more likely to find readers who it resonates with because you're writing from a greater place of truth.
• 32:20
  Shankari Chandran: I think that's exactly right.
• 32:21
  Shankari Chandran: I do.
• 32:22
  Shankari Chandran: I think there's a lot of noise when you are writing.
• 32:26
  Shankari Chandran: There can be, and there can be a lot of external pressure and a lot of worse internal pressure, and it's easy to forget.
• 32:36
  Shankari Chandran: The joy of just putting one word down in front of another and pushing yourself to produce something that you are really proud of.
• 32:43
  Shankari Chandran: That's the best that it can be, and the best that you can be.
• 32:46
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and to sort of still your mind and all those voices for long enough to, to hear and see the truth and, and give words to that.
• 32:55
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 32:55
  Natasha Rai: Amazing.
• 32:56
  Natasha Rai: And, and so for you, Shankari, like once Chai Time was out in the world and it was starting to get all this recognition, were you able to write, like, is that when you wrote Safe Haven or
• 33:06
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 33:07
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 33:07
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 33:07
  Shankari Chandran: So this is why I think with my, with my last three novels, Unfinished Business, then going back Safe Haven and then going back Chai Time, I think there is a mistake and belief that I am prolific and that I am very fast.
• 33:20
  Shankari Chandran: I'm not.
• 33:21
  Shankari Chandran: I wrote Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and submitted it in, um, at the end of 2020.
• 33:28
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 33:28
  Shankari Chandran: So, and it came out some 13 months later.
• 33:31
  Shankari Chandran: Okay.
• 33:31
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 33:32
  Shankari Chandran: So mm-hmm.
• 33:32
  Shankari Chandran: Came out at the beginning of 2022.
• 33:35
  Shankari Chandran: It won the Miles Franklin 18 months later.
• 33:39
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 33:39
  Shankari Chandran: In that 18 months, I had produced.
• 33:43
  Shankari Chandran: A crappy first draft of Safe Haven.
• 33:46
  Shankari Chandran: So by the time everyone just said, who is this and what's this book about?
• 33:51
  Shankari Chandran: Because 18 months of Chai Time being out in the world, and it had actually done really well in terms of sales and readership, but it's nothing compared to what the Miles Franklin did for it.
• 34:02
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 34:03
  Shankari Chandran: So it looked like a new book to many people.
• 34:06
  Shankari Chandran: It wasn't a new book, but it looked like a new book.
• 34:08
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah.
• 34:09
  Shankari Chandran: Because of the way the award cycle works and then the way the publicity works.
• 34:13
  Shankari Chandran: And then some, what is it?
• 34:15
  Shankari Chandran: Nine months after Chai Time wins, Safe Haven comes out, but that book had already been well on its way in the two years before its publication.
• 34:26
  Shankari Chandran: Then Chai, then Safe Haven comes out, and then seven months later unfinished Business comes out.
• 34:32
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 34:33
  Natasha Rai: So this is what I wanted to come written for 2017.
• 34:36
  Natasha Rai: So this is the bit I wanted to come back to.
• 34:38
  Natasha Rai: Was there a, like, was that a deliberate kind of choice that Ultimo and you made together?
• 34:44
  Shankari Chandran: No.
• 34:45
  Shankari Chandran: So the way that that worked was that when Robert and I, um, when Robert and I first started dating, um.
• 34:57
  Shankari Chandran: Bought, um, the rights to Unfinished Business, but the focus was on getting Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens out.
• 35:05
  Shankari Chandran: I had talked to him about a literary novel I was interested in writing, which later became Safe Haven.
• 35:11
  Shankari Chandran: Unfinished Business just sort of sat there in a, in a queue.
• 35:16
  Shankari Chandran: And I think quite rightly, publishers want to see how your work goes before they send three books out into the world in one go.
• 35:24
  Shankari Chandran: Right?
• 35:24
  Shankari Chandran: So, um.
• 35:26
  Shankari Chandran: There would've been absolutely an important element of that.
• 35:30
  Shankari Chandran: And in the meantime, Audible had also bought the content of Unfinished Business as an Audible original.
• 35:40
  Shankari Chandran: And what that means is, which I was new to it, is writers are writing content for Audible as audible originals, which means that they go straight to audio.
• 35:52
  Shankari Chandran: They appear as audio first.
• 35:55
  Shankari Chandran: And then Audible owned by Amazon sets the terms of that and the terms will be,
• 36:00
  Natasha Rai: oh, I did not know that.
• 36:01
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, and the terms will be that you are allowed to publish that book if you have held back your publishing rights, which I had.
• 36:10
  Shankari Chandran: You are allowed to publish that book.
• 36:12
  Shankari Chandran: So six months after the audio comes out.
• 36:18
  Shankari Chandran: So the audible comes out first as an original because it hasn't been seen anywhere before.
• 36:22
  Shankari Chandran: So it's called an original.
• 36:24
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 36:24
  Shankari Chandran: And then at least six months must pass and you can bring it out in book form.
• 36:29
  Shankari Chandran: And so just the way that that cadence worked is what you are seeing now.
• 36:33
  Natasha Rai: Ah, I see.
• 36:34
  Natasha Rai: Got it.
• 36:35
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:35
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:36
  Shankari Chandran: So, so Unfinished Business came out in February.
• 36:39
  Shankari Chandran: Of 2024.
• 36:41
  Shankari Chandran: Sorry.
• 36:42
  Shankari Chandran: Yes, 2024.
• 36:43
  Shankari Chandran: So at one point it looked like I'd released two books within two months of each other.
• 36:47
  Shankari Chandran: I was like, please, everyone, calm down.
• 36:50
  Shankari Chandran: This book has been out for eight years on my laptop.
• 36:54
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, this other book took two years at least to, to write.
• 36:59
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and I loved working with Audible, the commissioning editor there Radhiya Chowdrey.
• 37:06
  Shankari Chandran: Fabulous commissioning editor, and she was the one who really supported me with Unfinished Business to take the protagonist.
• 37:17
  Shankari Chandran: Remember that was my third manuscript written after the Barrier.
• 37:20
  Natasha Rai: That's right.
• 37:21
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 37:21
  Shankari Chandran: Originally I wrote her as a white woman.
• 37:24
  Shankari Chandran: Mm-hmm.
• 37:24
  Shankari Chandran: Rathi, or Radhiya Chowdrey from Audible.
• 37:28
  Shankari Chandran: When she read the content, she said, I love it.
• 37:32
  Shankari Chandran: I can't help but feel that your protagonist is actually a brown woman trapped in a white body.
• 37:37
  Natasha Rai: Very perceptive.
• 37:38
  Shankari Chandran: Very perceptive, and, and just so like a real kind of case study for why you want to have diverse voices at the table, making curatorial and commissioning decisions why you want diverse voices in places of power.
• 37:53
  Shankari Chandran: And that was a wonderful partnership and.
• 37:58
  Shankari Chandran: Changed.
• 37:59
  Shankari Chandran: Um, Ellie really back to who she was intended to be all along, and it just works so much more beautifully as.
• 38:08
  Natasha Rai: Oh, that's so wonderful.
• 38:10
  Natasha Rai: And you know, uh, since winning the Miles Franklin has it also then had an impact on, as in that overseas distribution as well?
• 38:18
  Shankari Chandran: Has that?
• 38:18
  Shankari Chandran: Not yet.
• 38:19
  Shankari Chandran: Not yet.
• 38:20
  Shankari Chandran: So this is really interesting.
• 38:21
  Shankari Chandran: Tash, I would've hoped for, um, the Miles Franklin to open the door to international publication of that book at least.
• 38:33
  Shankari Chandran: Um.
• 38:34
  Shankari Chandran: But it has had a limited run, a limited publication in the UK through an imprint, or in fact through Ultimo Press UK.
• 38:45
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and what we are hoping for though is a wider distribution in the UK and um, an American publication.
• 38:55
  Shankari Chandran: It has been translated into Finnish.
• 38:59
  Shankari Chandran: It's being, yes, I've had great reviews from Finland.
• 39:03
  Shankari Chandran: It's being translated into Arabic, um, that has not been completed yet.
• 39:08
  Shankari Chandran: It's currently being translated into Chinese.
• 39:11
  Shankari Chandran: And I've met my beautiful Chinese translator who works at the University of Western Sydney, Jing Han, amazing woman.
• 39:19
  Shankari Chandran: And so that will take as long as it takes, I guess, to, to translate and to publish in China.
• 39:27
  Shankari Chandran: But it has not yet had an American or a a, a proper UK deal.
• 39:33
  Shankari Chandran: Um, so I'm hoping with my next novel that maybe that will make its way into.
• 39:40
  Natasha Rai: How surprising.
• 39:41
  Natasha Rai: Finnish.
• 39:42
  Shankari Chandran: Yes.
• 39:42
  Shankari Chandran: Finish.
• 39:42
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, I know.
• 39:43
  Shankari Chandran: I mean, it makes me laugh because all the sort of academics in my family are like, yes, that makes total sense because the Tamil language is actually connected to the pheno Hungarian language.
• 39:52
  Shankari Chandran: Like okay.
• 39:54
  Shankari Chandran: Um, that's exactly why the Fins want to
• 39:57
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 39:57
  Shankari Chandran: Read the story.
• 39:59
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and you mentioned Shankari earlier about diverse voices.
• 40:02
  Shankari Chandran: I imagine just like I'm starting to get asked, you get asked a lot about diversity, the importance of amplifying voices, um, and almost sometimes being put up as a spokesperson.
• 40:16
  Shankari Chandran: Hmm.
• 40:17
  Natasha Rai: How do you cope, manage, navigate that?
• 40:20
  Natasha Rai: Do you like getting asked that question?
• 40:23
  Shankari Chandran: Um, I don't like it anymore.
• 40:27
  Shankari Chandran: I was initially okay about being asked that question because it's a legitimate question and it's an important question.
• 40:35
  Shankari Chandran: The question exists because a problem exists.
• 40:39
  Shankari Chandran: And those perhaps best place to answer it are those with lived experience of the challenges of publishing, uh, in know a white dominant environment.
• 40:49
  Shankari Chandran: So I understand the need for the question and the importance of the answer and the importance of addressing the problem.
• 40:54
  Shankari Chandran: And the problem is plural, interconnected, as they are, are being addressed slowly but surely, in particular because.
• 41:02
  Shankari Chandran: Of publishers like Robert Watkins who are willing to publish and who recognize the enormous quality of that literature.
• 41:11
  Shankari Chandran: Not just the value of diversity, but the fact that the literature is incredibly good, um, and that a cultural landscape or a literary landscape that reflects our cultural landscape makes sense.
• 41:26
  Shankari Chandran: Um, it also is changing because writers from non-white backgrounds are continuing to write despite the setbacks that they receive that are different, and I would suggest greater than many of the setbacks that white writers experience, which is not to say that they do not experience setbacks.
• 41:51
  Shankari Chandran: Um, and I do think those a really important.
• 41:55
  Shankari Chandran: Of class and socioeconomic background and privilege around writing.
• 42:02
  Shankari Chandran: So I can afford to change my corporate career to give myself time to write, and that is an economic privilege afforded to me by generations of family and to my own struggle and education and employment.
• 42:21
  Shankari Chandran: That is not something that everyone has.
• 42:24
  Shankari Chandran: So I think when we talk about diversity, we need to continue to talk about diversity.
• 42:29
  Shankari Chandran: We need to continue to though also talk about the ways in which the lack of diversity exists or presents itself.
• 42:36
  Shankari Chandran: It's not just color or gender.
• 42:39
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, I agree.
• 42:40
  Shankari Chandran: It's economics.
• 42:41
  Shankari Chandran: It's the loss of things.
• 42:44
  Shankari Chandran: Um, I think we also, I know what it is about that question.
• 42:50
  Shankari Chandran: Part of me.
• 42:52
  Shankari Chandran: Is unwilling to concede the premise because diversity suggests, um, that we are bringing difference into something that's fundamentally homogenous.
• 43:04
  Shankari Chandran: And I see that we are, I see that there is a dominant narrative and a dominant group.
• 43:09
  Shankari Chandran: I also think that.
• 43:11
  Shankari Chandran: My lived experience, my norms, what I write about, what I live, what I imagine my imagination is my norm and it's my normal.
• 43:21
  Shankari Chandran: And so when I go to my friend as a child, my friend Kate Kelly's house, and I'm presented with a steak, three vegetables and a knife and fork, like, wow, you guys are so diverse because that is different.
• 43:33
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Shankari Chandran: To my experience and how we conceive of the world is different.
• 43:41
  Shankari Chandran: So not just how we eat or what we eat.
• 43:45
  Shankari Chandran: So I think there's something even in the question that I would love to unpack.
• 43:51
  Shankari Chandran: Um, not right now on your podcast, but you've asked me how do I deal with the questions.
• 43:55
  Shankari Chandran: I answer them, I answer them honestly, and I answer them sincerely.
• 43:59
  Shankari Chandran: I understand where they come from.
• 44:01
  Shankari Chandran: It's a heavy weight to carry to feel that I am.
• 44:05
  Shankari Chandran: Um.
• 44:06
  Shankari Chandran: I mean, there's a, there is actually a growing group of writers of color massively quickly growing, and they're all really articulate and eloquent on these issues and many more issues, right?
• 44:20
  Shankari Chandran: Writers from.
• 44:21
  Shankari Chandran: Different backgrounds should not, should not only be asked about their background, they should be asked about, you know, their view on affordable housing.
• 44:30
  Shankari Chandran: Um, so I think thankfully there is a growing body and I am less of the representative than I used to have to be.
• 44:38
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 44:39
  Shankari Chandran: Um, I never really accepted I that mantle comfortably.
• 44:44
  Shankari Chandran: Not just because I'm introverted, but because I recognize my own privilege and I don't want to be.
• 44:51
  Shankari Chandran: Shunted into a place where people are asking me questions about an experience that is actually much broader and deeper and nuanced than what I can speak to because I can only speak to what I've lived.
• 45:06
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 45:06
  Natasha Rai: And what you know.
• 45:07
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 45:08
  Natasha Rai: And what I know.
• 45:09
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 45:09
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 45:10
  Natasha Rai: Um, and I think just on that point as well, the more stories that we have that are told, we're also reaching more readers because even.
• 45:20
  Natasha Rai: Our lives, the people around us have changed even in the last 10, 15, 20 years.
• 45:26
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 45:27
  Natasha Rai: So the readership is changing too.
• 45:29
  Natasha Rai: And even readers who have traditionally read one type or another type or have fa favorite writers, they are hungry for new stories and new voices.
• 45:37
  Natasha Rai: Like, it's not just some idea of, well, here is this other, other group of people who might be interested.
• 45:42
  Natasha Rai: It's like everyone.
• 45:44
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 45:45
  Natasha Rai: A lot of people are interested.
• 45:47
  Natasha Rai: Both established and the ones who haven't yet had access.
• 45:51
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah, and there's a whole conversation on that to be had separately about whether the readership, I think the readership is changing because.
• 45:59
  Shankari Chandran: The readership of the world is diversifying itself, it's migration.
• 46:03
  Shankari Chandran: Global migration necessarily means the markets that once looked a particular way now look different.
• 46:09
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 46:09
  Shankari Chandran: At the same time, I think intelligent, curious people have always sought to read a range of literature, and there is a, you know, an argument to be made that the curators of culture were the ones that didn't actually get that.
• 46:26
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 46:27
  Shankari Chandran: Yeah,
• 46:28
  Natasha Rai: I hear you.
• 46:31
  Natasha Rai: Um, so I'm a little bit shocked that we are nearly out of time because I'm having such a great time talking to you.
• 46:38
  Shankari Chandran: No, this is why we should go out for a drink, not a podcast.
• 46:41
  Natasha Rai: I agree.
• 46:42
  Natasha Rai: Let's make that happen.
• 46:44
  Natasha Rai: Um, but just as a final question, given as you said that, you know, when you looked at your calendar and it, it's, it's 13 years of.
• 46:52
  Natasha Rai: Writing practice.
• 46:53
  Natasha Rai: What have you learned, or from everything you've learned, everything you've experienced along the way, do you have any advice or top tips for emerging writers now?
• 47:03
  Shankari Chandran: I would say first and foremost, just keep writing.
• 47:07
  Shankari Chandran: Keep your pipeline and body of work going.
• 47:11
  Shankari Chandran: Don't stop.
• 47:13
  Shankari Chandran: Uh, and I would also say brace yourself.
• 47:17
  Shankari Chandran: 'cause it is challenging and it doesn't, I know that you'll, they'll know that it's not coming easily after their first sort of 10 rejections.
• 47:26
  Shankari Chandran: You, you get the sense it's not gonna come easily, right?
• 47:29
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 47:29
  Shankari Chandran: And I don't mean this to sound motherhood and apple pie, but I do mean it sincerely.
• 47:35
  Shankari Chandran: It isn't easy, but it is worth it.
• 47:38
  Shankari Chandran: My advice would be just keep writing, keep going.
• 47:41
  Shankari Chandran: Don't give up.
• 47:41
  Shankari Chandran: Don't listen to the noise.
• 47:43
  Shankari Chandran: Listen to yourself.
• 47:44
  Shankari Chandran: Sit down in front of the blank page and keep going.
• 47:48
  Natasha Rai: Great advice.
• 47:49
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 47:50
  Shankari Chandran: Thank you.
• 47:50
  Shankari Chandran: Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you.
• 47:56
  Tina Strachan: Thank you for listening to the Book Deal podcast.
• 47:59
  Tina Strachan: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the pod so you can receive updates as soon as our new eps drop.
• 48:06
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