Founder and Managing Director: Kanishka Gupta
Kanishka Gupta is a writer, editor and researcher. He started his career as the Chief Editor of a men’s lifestyle portal, where he edited more than 600 articles covering all aspects of fashion and lifestyle. Later, he worked for a literary agency and extensively read and recommended manuscripts. As a literary consultant with Pratilipi, Kanishka has helped the journal reach out to the following writers: Aditi Machado, Anupama Raju, Arunava Sinha, Ashok Banker, Aruni Kashyap, Meena Kandasamy, Preeta Samarasan, Priya Sarrukai Chhabria, Sridhar/Thayil and Sumana Roy. As a researcher, he has worked on In Search of Sita, a bestselling work published by Penguin Books India. He also used to edit the creative lifestyle magazine, Platform. He is very fond of edgy, quirky and dark fiction but will look at all manuscripts.
His first novel, History of Hate, was longlisted for the Man Asian Prize, 2009.
Chief Editor and Editor-at-Large: Rahul Soni
Rahul Soni is a writer, editor and translator of no fixed address. At various points in his life, though, he has lived in Iraq, Kuwait, Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Jodhpur and Jaipur. He has worked as an editor with Motif magazine, with Sahridaya Samvad, a Jaipur-based NGO, and is founder and editor of the online, bilingual,literary magazine, Pratilipi. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Almost Island, Biblio, Dhauli Review, Hindi, Indian Literature, etc. Currently translating Geetanjali Shree’s novel Tirohit for Harper Collins India, Dharamvir Bharati’s Suraj ka Saatvan Ghoda and Shrikant Verma’s Magadh. Other works-in-progress include a documentary and a novel. Awarded the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, for the year 2010.
An interview with him can be read at the Calque Journal.
Senior Editor: Ujwala Samarth
Ujwala Samarth has freelanced extensively as a features writer for various newspapers and magazines in Bombay and Delhi. She has worked as a researcher-writer with the Centre for Science and Environment, and as an editor with the Voluntary Health Association of India. She has written/adapted several short plays, one of which (The Man Who Wanted to Fly) has been published by Scholastic Publications. She has also been a teacher for many years and is now an educational consultant who still likes reading and writing more than anything else in the world.
Editor: Devaki Khanna
An MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University, Devaki has worked in various editorial positions for seven years, for a wide variety of publications, including Business India, Softcell, Cyber Media India Ltd. and Encyclopedia Britannica. She has also worked as a freelance copy-editor and writer with NIIT, Classteacher.com, Q2A Solutions, FCS Ltd, G-Cube Solutions, Mosaic Services, MedRite and SMI Tech, Rupa & Co., Vikas Publications and Universities Press. She is a member of the Society of Young Publishers (SYP) and the Society of Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP).
Editor: Nandita Jaishankar
Nandita Jaishankar grew up in Malaysia, Sweden and China and graduated from McGill University (Montreal) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). She has worked with publishing houses such as Roli Books, Dorling Kindersley and Wisdom Tree. She is a freelance editor currently based in New Delhi.
Reader / Consultant: Gouri Dange
Gouri Dange is a writer, book editor and practising family counsellor. Her features, articles, interviews, short stories – various works of fiction and non-fiction – appear regularly in leading Indian publications. Her writing and short stories have been featured in Stories at the Coffee Table (Caferati, 2006) and Being Single in India (Penguin, India, 2006). In July 2008, Penguin India published her novel 3, Zakia Mansion. In September 2008, Jaico Books published her ABCs of Parenting. A screenplay that she has written, Second Marriage, is currently being looked at by two production houses.
She holds writing workshops and has edited and assisted in the writing of over 100 books over the last 15 years, on Indian music, art and art history, social movements, the environment, business, travel, world cuisine, dog watching, etc. She has assisted in the structuring and characterization of screenplays-in-the-making and has associated closely with the Indian publishing and film industries. Gouri undertakes book coaching – enabling writers to actually get down to writing that book. She helps them with structuring, scheduling, working to a deadline, providing them with feedback and tips to keep at the writing/rewriting process.
Assistant Editor: Amrita Pai
Technical Writer by profession, editor by choice, travel writer by interest and translator by training, Amrita has worn many hats in her career spanning 6 years. She has edited a series of children’s short-stories translated from Mizo into English, published by Katha, New Delhi, as well as the 2nd edition of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day, for Random House India.