Writing: Pratap Reddy Interview

Web surfing brought me to The Artisanal Writer's interview of Pratap Reddy. The blurb teasing the interview incorporating the following caught my attention:

7. Do you train your subconscious in certain ways to deal with success or rejection?

This is something every aspiring writer will encounter sooner or later – the rejection slip! While I tell myself that rejection is not necessarily a comment on the quality of a story or a book, there’s a sense of mortification every time it happens. Non-success is a common phenomenon in all human endeavours, but for a writer, the disappointment feels even more acute when you consider the time and labour which may have gone into the production of a work. But I have trained myself to swallow my disappointment in a quick gulp and move on to writing the next query letter. Writers are a sensitive lot, I tell myself, but it is to our advantage to acquire an extra-thick skin when it comes not only to rejection slips but to negative reviews as well.

Seemed like good advice to pass along. I would suggest reading the whole interview if you are an immigrant writer or someone from somewhere without an obvious literary culture.

Who is Pratap Reddy?

An underwriter by day and a writer by night, Pratap Reddy moved to Canada in 2002. He writes about the agonies and the angst of new immigrants. An alumnus of the Humber School of Writers, he has written two books Weather Permitting & Other Stories’ (Guernica 2016) and a novel Ramya’s Treasure (Guernica 2018). He has put together another collection Remaindered People which is yet to be published and the stories contained therein fetched him the ‘Outstanding – Literary Arts’ award from the Mississauga Arts Council. To break away from the immigrant experience mould, he has started working on a novel Praful’s Errands but Covid 19 seems to have infected it though sparing its author.

Artisanal Writer almost put me off by its name. It smacked.of airy preciousness. I am happy curiosity trumped my prejudices. The interviews ask pertinent questions that helped and encouraged this struggling writer. Give the site a whirl.

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12/15/21