Open for short stories under 3,000 words.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Novelists Indu Sundaresan and A.X. Ahmad are the judges of the India Currents magazine’s 2014 “Katha” short story contest.
Individuals from across the nation are encouraged to submit their work to the competition, with cash prizes for the top three entries. First place nets the winner $300, second place $200, and third place, $100 prize. Two other contestants will also be recognized with Honorable Mentions. All winning entries will also be considered for publication in an upcoming issue of India Currents magazine, which has wide readership throughout the state of California and in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, too.
“I joined the India Currents family as a writer/contributor through the Katha competition,” editor Jaya Padmanabhan told The American Bazaar. “Back in 2008, one of my stories placed in the competition, and today, I am the editor of this wonderful magazine and am releasing my [own] collection of short stories on April 1st.”
The judges for the “Katha” contest are two well-known writers in their own right. Sundaresan was born and raised in India, the daughter of an Indian military pilot. She came to the US for her post-graduate studied and attended the University of Delaware, where she earned an M.S. in operations research and an M.A. in economics.
She has written six books so far in her career: The Twentieth Wife (2002); The Feast of Roses (2003); The Splendor of Silence (2006); In the Convent of Little Flowers (2008), Shadow Princess (2010) and The Mountain of Light (2013). Her books carry themes of the empowerment of women and contain elements of Hindu mythology, and have been translated into 20 languages so far.
Ahmad is a graduate of India’s Vassar College, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has also studied at New York University, and has taught writing at the Bethesda Writing Center, just outside of the nation’s capital. His short stories and essays on immigrant life have been published in The New York Times, The Missouri Review, The Harvard Review, The New England Review, Narrative Magazine and The Good Men Project.
His most recent work is “The Caretaker,” only his second novel thus far and yet another incursion into the thriller genre. His first published book was “The Last Taxi Ride,” which is ““A fast-paced, page-turning thriller featuring Ranjit Singh, hero of The Caretaker, and his search through the immigrant underworld of New York to find the killer of a Bollywood actress.â€
Submissions for the “Katha” contest are to be no more than 3,000 words long, and must be submitted to katha@indiacurrents.com, along with a $7 submission fee either vie check or Paypal. For more information, including deadline for submission, those interested can visit the contest’s official page here.
To contact the author, email to editor@americanbazaaronline.com
[This story was updated on 3/19/14.]