In its first-ever children’s literature festival, Dakshina Chitra will honour young writers from August 6 to September 3 at its Heritage Museum.
Along with literary talks, panel discussions, workshops, theatre, and music, “Rough Note—Literarily Yours” will also include a schedule of other events.
Lakshmi Thyagarajan, senior education coordinator of Dakshina Chitra, claims that the objective is to encourage young people’s imaginative storytelling abilities while supporting their book publication. “Works of fiction, nonfiction, prose, and poetry in English and Tamil are invited from children aged seven to sixteen. They will work with illustrators to produce their best work, which will then be collected in an anthology. According to Thyagarajan, the children’s literature festival’s goal is to inspire kids to write for younger readers. On it, they are collaborating with Notion Press.
According to Thyagarajan, Dakshina Chitra will collaborate with schools, but anyone can submit their work. The compositions should be approximately 150 words long for younger age groups and 350 words long for older age groups. In addition, she adds, “we are organising workshops for kids to interact with authors, artists, and storytellers throughout the month.”
Yuma Vasuki, a Tamil novelist who served on the jury that selected the submissions for the anthology, claims that this is a forum to support that.
A living history museum devoted to the history and culture of South India is called Dakshina Chitra. The Madras Craft Foundation established and oversees the museum.