Can a Menopausal Indian Woman Write Romance?
Shobhan Bantwal October 25, 2007
When I first decided to write women’s romantic fiction based in India, I had to ask myself two basic questions: First, do American readers know anything about the life of an average middle-class Indian man or woman? Second, as a Hindu woman in her fifties, especially one who had an old-fashioned arranged marriage, what did I know about writing for mainstream American readers?
Not many American readers and moviegoers know a lot about Indian culture. The reason for this is because Indian writers and moviemakers have not been effective in portraying the true face of India to American audiences. The real India lies somewhere in between the glitz and glamour of Bollywood movies and the poverty and despair of serious literary novels and documentaries.
As far as writing was concerned, I knew I was a good writer. As a result of what I call a “menopausal epiphany” which nudged me to take up creative writing, I had found a fair amount of success writing freelance articles about living in America for a number of Indian-American publications. They were received very well.
This minor taste of success led to short stories. Imagine my surprise when one of my stories won first place in a fiction competition and two others won honorable mention. Not bad, considering I was competing with hundreds of entries. That is when I decided to take a short creative writing course at my local community college, which in turn led to aspirations of becoming a novelist.
So, what was I going to write about? Most of my fellow Indian authors were well-known for writing highly literary novels that are about a slice of life or the human condition. I wanted to write what I enjoyed reading: women’s fiction with strong romantic elements. But if I went against the grain, would anyone want to read the kind of fiction I wanted to write? After some deliberation I thought I would take up the challenge anyway. My first manuscript was actually a chicklit novel because I had noticed it was a popular genre, notwithstanding the fact that I had very little knowledge of what very young women said and did.
At first my queries ended up in a lot of rejections. I realized my pitch letter was rather uninspiring, so I polished up the query and started the process all over again. All of a sudden I had a flurry of interest. Three offers of representation! I took what I thought was the best offer from Stephanie Lehamann of The Elaine Koster Agency from New York City, the agency that represents the literary sensation, Khaled Hosseini of The Kite Runner fame. I couldn’t ask for a better agent since Stephanie herself is a multi-published chicklit author.
Alas, my chicklit novel was rejected by every publisher. My heroine according to them was unsympathetic and they could not warm up to her. I asked my agent if she would be interested in reading something else I had written, a novel about a young woman trapped in India’s notoriously controversial dowry system. She agreed to read it. She liked it a lot and sent it out to publishers. Several weeks later THE DOWRY BRIDE was sold. I had a two-book deal with Kensington Books.
I had succeeded in doing what I had set out to do: convince myself and the world that it is possible for a 50 something Indian woman to write romantic fiction.
About Shobhan Bantwal
SHOBHAN BANTWAL was born and raised in India and came to the United States as a young bride in an arranged marriage. She has published short fiction in literary magazines and articles in a number of publications. Writing plays in her mother tongue (Indian language - Konkani) and performing on stage at Indian-American conventions are her favorite pastimes. Shobhan loves to hear from her readers. Visit her at her web site:
www.shobhanbantwal.com.
Shobhan Bantwal Profile at OnceWritten.com
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