Press Release

Announcing the winners of READISCOVERY (c) 2022 | Ekansh Trust and HarperCollins’ short story writing competition for the blind or visually impaired

On the occasion of International Day of Disabled PersonThe winners of READISCOVERY (c) ‘2022

have been announced by Ekansh Trust.Outreach & Editorial Support by

HARPERCOLLINS INDIA

For writers who are blind or visually impaired, the EKansh Trust with HarperCollins India hosted a short story writing competition.

The contest’s winners are listed below:

Visually impaired category:

Gurpreet Walia, author of the story The Miscreants, won the first prize. (Rs 10,000)Non- visually impaired winners include:

Dharithri Krishmaurthy, whose story is titled Life.

Champa Flowers and the Perfect Cup of Coffee, by Leha Divakar.

Our three judges panel were all highly qualified achievers who are also blind or visually impaired, names below:

Nikita Vaid, Rahul Kelapure, Sameer Latey

Many stories are being published in Braille, and that is a wonderful trend. With modern technology, any text can be scanned and printed in Braille, or even read out to a person using assistive software. But do meanings of visually descriptive words become accessible too? READISCOVERY provided an opportunity for blind writers to explore and share their imagination and talent. It was also an opportunity for everyone to think out of the visual box.

Rediscovery aimed at bringing out the visionary ideas and imagination that don’t require one to see colours, frames and objects. It was a creative challenge open to all writers. But the prizes were only reserved for writers with visual impairment / blindness only.

The idea was to write a story without any visual descriptions or references, putting in use all senses other than that of sight to tell a tale. Over all 30 participants from all around the country participated out of which over 25 are blind / visually impaired. Certificates will be awarded to all participants

The stories were to appeal to and be understood by people who are blind from birth. The theme was scattered to every genre and not necessarily about someone who is blind. It was not supposed to be in a biography format.

Prizes [Only for Blind writers]

· Frist Prize: Rupees 10,000/-

Only the first prize was taken by Gurpreet Walia.

About Ekansh Trust

EKansh Trust is an award-winning NGO begun in 2007 and registered in 2009, working to empower Persons with Disabilities. They work to encourage Awareness, Acceptance, Sensitivity and Inclusion via their different projects, workshops, courses, competitions and employment drives involving Corporate Executives, Students in colleges and schools, Anganwadi Workers, Educators, Government Officials, Builders, Fashion Designers, etc. They have held similar competitions for Blind writers in Marathi and English before. This time, however, the rule of NO VISUAL REFERENCES is going to be followed more strictly. They have published India’s first Colouring books which has characters with disabilities in each picture, story books with characters with disabilities and a set of 4 mini biographies of young adults with disabilities penned by a peer. The idea is to spread awareness and make inclusion an organic process.

About HarperCollins

India HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live! Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Harvard University Press, Gallup Press, Oneworld, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet. HarperCollins India has been awarded the Publisher of the Year Award four times: at Tata Literature Live! in 2021, 2018 and 2016 and at Publishing Next in 2015. HarperCollins India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers.

For further information please contact: Anita Iyer Narayan, Founder & Mg Trustee, EKansh Trust at info@ekansh.org

For HarperCollins, please contact: Aman Arora, General Manager, Marketing, at aman.arora@harpercollins.co.in

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