This week: Acting on an Impulse Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Library Class! More Newsletters By This Editor
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This is something real, that happened to me on Feb 10, 2019. I want to share it with you because ... well ... it's just so 'happy ending' oriented! |
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Dear Reader,
I have a friend whose first novel won him best Indian debut novel in English, 2016.
I'm a contributor to an online review magazine that's based out of my city, and I have reviewed his book for this online magazine.
The chief editor of the online magazine decided to call a face-to-face meeting of contributors, and, one Sunday in Dec. 2018, a dozen of us met at a bookshop-cafe and discussed ideas -- how do we make reviewing popular? How do we make the online magazine relevant to readers in our city?
The idea germinated -- let's have an event, inviting an author to review reviewers!
And who better than an author based in the city, who has been reviewed by the magazine ... ?
He agreed. And he wouldn't charge anything, so we could make it a free event.
Those of you who are on Facebook might have seen me pushing the event "Reviewers Reviewed - The Ultimate Role Reversal".on my timeline and in various groups. About a thousand individual emails were sent out to subscribers, too.
With ten days to go, I asked the chief editor 'how many registrations?'
'One. Yours.'
I panicked and sent individual mails to people on my list.
One week to go. Three registrations.
I racked my brains. How to get more responses? It hit me at midnight, with about five days to go. Colleges! I searched the internet for a list of colleges offering English Literature courses, found their Facebook pages, and started to 'ping' them with the event. I went in alphabetical order and when I reached 'M', Facebook told me I had to stop temporarily, I had reached the 'spam' limit.
The day dawned.We had planned the event in the city's most famous park, under the shade of the trees. I carried some folding chairs, biscuits and water. The team from the magazine (three of them) brought mats and newspapers for people to sit on.
The scheduled time arrived. It was me, a friend of mine, and three from the team.
"Let's start. You have the five of us," we said. "Wish we could've got more."
We started with an introduction to reviewing -- why did we review? For ourselves? For the author? For other readers?
We were answering these questions when ...
"They must be looking for a picnic spot," my friend said.
It was a group of twenty people, heading in our direction. Holding notebooks and pencils. They weren't going anywhere else. They weren't passing us by. They stopped.
"Is this the reviewing event?"
"Yes!"
The oldest of them was the professor, the others his students. He was in charge of social media for the college, and had seen my ping. "I saw it while I was driving and couldn't reply immediately," he explained. "And I forgot later that I hadn't confirmed to you we were coming, but here we are!"
It was nothing short of a miracle ... brought about by a sudden impulse - sending 'pings' to all the colleges offering the relevant course. We had a lively session, and have a new list of email ids we can reach out to for the next event!
A real-life dramatic scenario with a happy ending. It doesn't get better.
Thanks for listening!
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Here's a contest that ran four days and got some creative entries!
Sort of fits in with the theme of this newsletter!
All-time favourites!
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