Sad men behaving badly
In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime.
2w ago
Everything you need is already inside you
The mid-month slump is probably the most demoralising part of the Sehri Tales challenge, even for long-time Talers.
7m ago
A change of perspective
I love reading about popular inventions which were originally created with a different purpose in mind. For instance, did you know that bubble wrap, that oh-so-ubiquitous packing material that doubles as a stress-relieving toy, was initially intended to be wallpaper? Imagine that! On the one hand, you have hours and hours of bubble-popping fun. On the other hand, probably a trypophobe’s nightmare, so maybe not. Either way, March Chavannes and Alfred Fielding, the co-inventors of the material, thought they had a dud on their hands until IBM started looking for better packing materials for their delicate new computers. The rest is history.
7m ago
The bare necessities
I remember the Ramadan of 2020, which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also the year my friends and I decided to shift the Sehri Tales to our own platform and open it up to a wider audience.
8m ago
The heart will lead you back
Originally from Massachusetts, international development consultant Elizabeth Shick was living with her family in Yangon, Myanmar from 2013-2019 and got to witness not just Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy win the 2015 elections by a landslide, but the military crackdown on Rakhine state that led to the Rohingya exodus into Bangladesh in 2017.
9m ago
Learning to let go
As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.
10m ago
What you call your own
As an Anglophone writer in Bangladesh, I’ve frequently faced the rather inane question of why I write in English.
1y ago
Mood mirror
Whenever depression is depicted in pop culture, it is shown in some visible extreme, with blue-grey lighting, dark rooms, ashen faces peering out through rainy windows, bodies curled up in bed.
1y ago
April 6, 2023
Homegrown heroine
This story, which originally began as a short story, features a headstrong heroine putting her desires above what society expects of her, in order to realise her destiny.
April 1, 2023
In defense of brevity
You’ve got a fantastic project, and have found a potential investor for this. They’ve given you two minutes to deliver a killer pitch and convince them you’re worth it.
March 25, 2023
Take note: How note-taking can come in handy when you’re short of inspiration
Watch this print space for the Talespeople's weekly reflections on creative writing.
January 26, 2023
Family of feelings: Iffat Nawaz's 'Shurjo's Clan'
Part memoir, part magical realism, this is a story about identity and the idea of home.
December 1, 2022
Jane Borges’ 'Bombay Balchão' is a crafty explosion of flavour
The characters crackle with life, quirky and contradictory, despicable and sympathetic in turns.
October 28, 2022
Ink for days: How Inktober is its own medium of storytelling
Pictures are really the most basic form of story-telling, aren’t they? I imagine our ancestors sat around fires doing shadow theatre. They painted on cave walls long before writing came along.
May 2, 2022
The Sehri Tales prompt is a Rorschach test for participants
If there is one thing that worries me a little, it is that the strong trend for themes of sexual violence that began to appear during lockdown, continues to be favoured by a significant number of our domestic writers.
April 26, 2022
It gets better
It’s hard to believe, but we only moved out of the sandbox provided by Litmosphere (thanks Rubaiya and Ramisa Chowdhury) two years ago, and shifted Sehri Tales © to an independent platform in 2020! We hope you’ve been enjoying the stories so far.
April 21, 2022
Ramadan Maghfirat: How I channelled my rage into inspiration for Sehri Tales
I channelled my hurt, anger and frustration into poetry and flash fiction that had nothing to do with my agitator and her cronies.
April 19, 2022
This is how we do it
This year, most of the frequently asked questions pertain to the selection process behind the stories chosen for our Star Youth collaboration. I hope the following explainer answers most of them.
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