Ahmedabad University Launches the Writing Residency

The Writing Residency is a two-week to one month fellowship offered by Ahmedabad Writing Programme, Ahmedabad University. The residency encourages cultural exchange amongst writers writing in different languages. It includes workshops, readings and conversations with the writers about their creative process and the craft of writing. The writers will produce a short literary piece—fiction/non-fiction/poetry—on Ahmedabad. They will have a public conversation about their work, and also deliver a talk on their writing and publishing experience.

Two acclaimed writers, Anukrti Upadhyay and Radhika Iyengar, will be our Resident Writers for the first iteration of the residency scheduled during April 15-30, 2024.

Anukrti Upadhyay writes fiction and poetry in both English and Hindi. Her English works, twin novellas Daura (2019) and Bhaunri (2019), and the novel Kintsugi (2020), published by HarperCollins India, have been nominated for awards. She has also won the Sushila Devi Award for the best work of fiction written by a woman author in 2020 for the novel Kintsugi. Her latest work, The Blue Women (HarperCollins, 2023), is a collection of short stories. Her writings have been published widely, including in Scroll, Kitaab, The Bombay Review, The Bangalore Review, and The Bilingual Window, and in several Hindi publications. She has post-graduate degrees in management and literature, and a graduate degree in law.

Radhika Iyengar is an award-winning journalist based in Mumbai, who writes on various subjects including arts and culture, marginalised communities, history, and gender. She is the author of a debut non-fiction book, Fire on the Ganges: Life among the Dead in Banaras, published by HarperCollins India, for which she won the Gaurang River Prize for Best Non-Fiction (2024) and the Kalinga Literary Award (Youth). This book has also been longlisted for the Times of India AutHer Awards for Best Debut Book 2024. Iyengar is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York. She won the Red Ink Award for Excellence in Indian Journalism (2018).