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Editorial

Why Jaggery?

The publishing world often tries to put its writers into boxes: easily-marketable boxes. You can’t really blame them, in some sense—it’s much easier to create a shelf in the bookstore, label it ‘ethnic literature’ and then put all the ‘ethnic’ writers there, than it would be to market each complex writer individually. The big publishers want a young desi woman to write an arranged marriage novel, because they know where the market is for those books. There’s a reason they keep putting red saris on our book covers; they know what sells.

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  1. Mary Anne, this is exactly what I am fighting, the fact that we have to write in a certain way, fit a certain slot because we are writers of Indian origin.

    While I am not against my roots infusing into my writing, which is a natural thing and I will not delete that kind a thing off from my work, I will definitely not be slotted, and will not write a certain kind of work, because it is what is considered to be desi…there are more facets to us, no? We contain multitudes, and I think I have said enough, both by stating and not stating explicitly.

    I found this magazine through Duotrope. I don’t know whether I will submit now, but I will definitely read.
    Goodluck

    ~just call me Ann

    November 27, 2013

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