Throughout literary history, what we read, and how we are shaped by that reading has been guided, encouraged and nudged by literary editors. Editors who inhabit publishing houses or literary magazines, people who keep watch over what goes in, and often instrumental in how the world perceives the written word. TBR brings together five such editors who discuss literature, publishing, editing, translation and collaborations between various literary magazines.
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TBR: What keeps you enthusiastic about your work?
Sonia J Nair: I remain enthusiastic on account of the encouragement Samyukta poetry gets from the community. There is also the possibility of being able to do new things, to experiment and to serve as a voice that keeps me going.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: Given the fact that very few people have the opportunity to work in a line that they are passionate about, I feel grateful to be doing what I do. But other than that, it gives me a sense of being able to contribute to the vision that I have for literature. As a writer, you are responsible only for your own work, but as an editor, you have both responsibility and vision for both the writer you showcase, and the readers of your magazine- to me that is very gratifying and lasting.
Smita Sahay: There is a quiet catalysis at the heart of editing — and that’s what keeps me going. Especially when working with writers on the margins, those who are constantly told to explain or simplify themselves, it feels radical to say: “You don’t need to perform. We’re listening.”
There are moments when, simply by the benefit of distance and deep listening, an editor can help a writer see what they had unconsciously set out to do. Writing is often layered, messy, and emotionally consuming. A good editorial conversation becomes a mirror, a scaffold, and sometimes even a balm.
Sometimes, a little love, nudging, and coaxing can bring out a piece of writing that neither the writer nor the editor expected. Something alchemical happens when a writer and an editor truly engage with a piece. Editorial work, when done with care and mutual respect, is transformative.
Every time I encounter a voice that resists the standard literary polish or breaks a rule in just the right way, I feel a spark. And every time a writer tells me they felt heard, not just edited, I know the work is worth it.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: When one follows one’s heart, enthusiasm is a default situation. However, that doesn’t mean there are no dark days or moments. In fact, there are plenty of those, but then a beautiful piece of writing comes along, or a writer reaches out with acknowledgement of your work, and the enthusiasm returns. When a good issue takes shape and is published, when work on a book you believe in is done and it gets praise from readers, you know why you work despite the challenges and the odds. The collaboration among writer-editor-reader is a mutually enhancing, mutually learning experience that never grows old.
Nishi Pulugurtha: The fact that I enjoy doing what I do.
TBR: How much of our personal inner world affects our choice of selecting stories, poems, essays? More importantly, does our own reading and writing, biases and conflicts sometimes fight a battle during this selection?
Sonia J Nair: For me, as an editor, I do not let any part of me come into the selection process. It might seem impossible, but I ensure that I don’t let my perceptions of things cloud my judgement. And if I were to guess why this is, I think it’s got a lot to do with my day job as an academic. Teaching helps you grow out of your biases, your conditioning and encourages inclusivity- if you want to be rid of them that is! I am always happy to find likeminded readings! If not, it is what it is.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: While as an editor, you always try to remain objective during the selection process, nevertheless it is also your personal reading, reflection, experience of life and your editorial capabilities of being able to discern the good, bad and the mediocre that teaches you to be able to look at a piece more expansively and locally, to not be the gate keeping, instead gently give direction into developing and portraying a literary sense that is universal, lasting and all encompassing.
Smita Sahay: I have never belonged to a neat group of formally educated literature or creative writing graduates. My inner world is one of constant and hungry learning, shaped by an evolving relationship with feminist thought, anti-caste politics, and forms of literary dissent.
There is also an anxiety I carry: where does literature fit in a world constantly challenging our ideas of peace, personhood, and love?
Our team at Usawa and Matchbox is small and deeply committed, and most of us come from outside traditional literary pathways. That means our curation grows from lived experience, personal reading histories, and political positions. Some pieces I respond to instantly because they mirror something unspoken in me. Others I resist because they challenge me to grow.
The editorial desk is often a site of small, interior battles. Which is why I believe in second readings. In pausing. In questioning our first reactions. The editorial process is not just about taste; it’s about responsibility, and sometimes long discussions.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: I think it is quite natural for editors to lean towards stories that appeal to their worldview, their preferences, and so, editorial inclination could determine a list. However, that is at best a temptation, never the guiding principle, unless we are helming magazines or publishing houses with a certain predilection or proclaimed subject matters. Otherwise, it is always the literary value and quality, the universal or topical relevance of a story, the ability of the writer to respond to editorial engagement and the potential of a story, even if it comes to me as seed or kernel that takes centre-stage.
Nishi Pulugurtha: While working on selecting, editing, I do not allow my personal choices to come in. I am more of a critic then, looking at a text as an independent entity. I suppose my training as an academic comes into play here.
My own reading definitely plays a part as it is something that has honed my skill as a critic.
TBR: Are we able to be diverse and inclusive, given the submissions we receive?
Sonia J Nair: We can try and be by reaching out, curating diverse content. Then they come on their own. The pride month selections we did a couple of years ago still receives a lot a hits and responses.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: Repeatedly we hear from our readers and from those who submit to us, that as a magazine we have published diverse work from people belonging to all walks of life, writers both known and unknown, and from anywhere on the earth. Our only criteria for publishing is literature that is relevant, curious, even avantgarde- and in that, given the submissions we receive, I think we have managed that well enough.
Smita Sahay: We try. Repeatedly, and with intention.
Usawa Literary Review is a feminist literary magazine, is a space for feminist, anti-caste, queer, underrepresented writing. But even with the best of intentions, inclusion isn’t guaranteed. It’s not just about who we accept — it’s about who feels safe and confident enough to submit in the first place.
Many extraordinary writers hesitate because they fear their work isn’t “literary enough” or “feminist enough.” As editors, we walk a tightrope between politics and craft, instinct and capacity. And as our submissions increase, we’re forced to let go of pieces we love for reasons beyond the work itself — thematic, logistical, or ethical. That’s never easy, and it never stops hurting.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: We have been diverse, varied, experimental in our choice of works, voices, approaches, styles.
Nishi Pulugurtha: One tries to, one strives to. One wishes there would be more choices available as well.
TBR: The publishing world is full of women though the stakeholders are often men, why would you think so?
Sonia J Nair: It’s like how most novelists are men, but the readers are mostly women.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I think publishing requires a certain mothering, some amount of hand holding if you will, with attention to detail, compassion and perseverance- all of which women are often better at then men. Having said that, a generation of women have traditionally used the money they have to often build on their family security, rather than investing in a dream of their own (in this case publishing). But times are changing fast, and I’d like to believe, as women move towards more monetary power, they are now ready invest more into a dream that they feel is worth nurturing.
Smita Sahay: Because ambition, labour, and authority are gendered. And unless we interrogate how publishing borrows from patriarchal capitalism — in funding, branding, leadership, and legitimacy — this imbalance will persist.
Often, women do the daily work: reading, editing, holding emotional labour, but often men still disproportionately hold institutional power, access to capital, and the ability to fail upwards.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: Publishing needs nurturing, which needs patience, an intuitive understanding of undercurrents, handholding with writers, qualities which, without being sexist, I think women naturally bring to the table. Stake holding what we already do so well is a different story. Strangely, even in this century and age, the power dynamics of finance and technological control still seem to drive choices in this matter.
Nishi Pulugurtha: I am not sure about it. Maybe they are inhibited from expressing and getting published, maybe they feel what they are writing would be misread, misconstrued, misrepresented. Maybe there is a fear somewhere that makes them keep things to themselves.
While discussing a project recently with someone who is a writer, translator, editor and publisher, I recall what she noted. She said that while there have definitely been women authors who had written stories (say in the 80 s and 90s, she was speaking of a specific language) many of the stories written and published by women in magazines and newspapers have now largely been lost as they have not been collected into volumes of work by these women writers. She does have an important point there I thought when I heard her say that.
I think this also leads on to the next question that you ask.
TBR: Literary magazines as cultural archives: do they serve as socio-literary commentary?
Sonia J Nair: Absolutely. The content they carry is very valuable and their accessibility and archival space make them invaluable. Like the little magazines and the poetry journals of the earlier times that contained trajectories for the future, the magazines of our times will also serve the purpose of cultural archives.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I think all literary magazines, both big and small, online or offline, are a reflection of the socio-literary space and time they inhabit, while also going back and forth into time. Literature captures our thought process, and in that it is inexplicably connected with both society and its reflection through the years. So yes, as an archive of thoughts, a literary magazine is a special place.
Smita Sahay: Absolutely.
Literary magazines capture writing that serves as the spine of a cultural moment. While journalism might record history as it unfolds, literature looks into that history, tracing the psychic and emotional costs.
Every themed issue at Usawa — from “Gender and Its Discontents” to “The Body,” “Appetite,” and the forthcoming “Memories of Dreams” — unravels for us how literature metabolises the contemporary. We don’t fully grasp a theme’s depth until the last submission comes in.
I hope, years from now, Usawa is read not just for craft, but as a record of what writers were grieving, resisting, and reimagining.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: Every piece of writing, irrespective of genre, is a microcosm of lived and evolving reality, speaking to present concerns, remembering pasts and imagining futures. This makes literary magazines works-in-progress, constantly mapping constancy and flux through the stories, essays, poems, reviews that they publish. If one were to study literary magazines of a particular time period or analyze the kind of work published across the years, one might get a clear enough idea of social mores and public conversation in both their dynamism and stasis.
Nishi Pulugurtha: Absolutely. I strongly believe that each and every work is a document of the times it is written in. Of the social, political, cultural, literary ethos of which it has emanated.
It is hence important that magazines, etc that discontinue after some time should not fade out and disappear. They need to be archived. Also, not everyone has that amount of work that could be collated into an anthology. We could have voices who have a limited amount of work, but work that definitely needs to be archived and preserved.
TBR: Do you think there have been changes in the kind of submissions your magazine has been getting over the years, in terms of quality and nature of work?
Sonia J Nair: Yes. There are a lot more people writing in, reaching out.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: In terms of poetry, the submissions we get from Indian poets writing in English are now refreshingly more local in terms of thought, and global in style, I think. In terms of fiction and non -fiction, I see far more complex thought processes that are far better tackled now in the submissions we get. Also, we get far more pieces on translation now, which makes me very happy specially.
But I would like to add that the style and quality of submissions is to a certain extent guided by publishing precedent set by the editors oftentimes. There have been many a times when poets have written in to say that they are submitting an experimental piece inspired by something experimental we might have published earlier.
Smita Sahay: Dramatically.
In the beginning, we saw brilliant writing that was hesitant. Writers felt the need to translate themselves, soften their truths, explain their context. Now, the pieces that come in are more confident, defiant even.
There’s a rising tide of bold, politically alert, form-challenging writing — particularly from historically excluded communities. Even the quiet pieces now feel rooted in a deep knowing.
Writers are less afraid of being illegible to the centre. That’s a win.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: I notice that more writers are sending in experimental pieces than they did earlier. There is more queer writing coming in but also a certain kind of fear or inhibition on the part of some writers in going ahead with a submission even after it has been accepted. That is due to the challenging political climate in various countries, and we get submissions from across the world. The pandemic has evoked more writing addressing the subject from writers in the West compared to those from Asian countries. But unlike poetry, fiction has had very little translation coming in, and that is something I hope will change in the coming years. Also, political narratives are few and far between; it’s almost as if writers are deliberately staying away from this kind of writing, and this is true of most countries from where we get submissions.
Nishi Pulugurtha: I have been editing Antonym Magazine since November 2024. I am Chief Editor for the year 2025 but I began work in November 2024 and so it is not a long time at all. However, I feel that when it comes to translations (Antonym Magazine is devoted to translations) I think they are more and more people who are interested in trying their hand at translations. There are all kinds of translations that come in. I must say that some of them are really good, both in terms of the quality of translation and the choice of the text.
As someone who has been associated with working with poetry for some time (I have been co-editor of the Journal of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library [IPPL], Poetry at the Heart of the Nation) I see more and more people trying their hands at writing poetry. I am, particularly, happy to see younger people write. Several of my students did and that makes me really happy. Seeing them engage with words and expression. The experimentation is something that is really hopeful.
TBR: As editors who are also writers, does the experience of editing affect your own writing and vice-versa?
Sonia J Nair: O yes! I have learned to be more conscious of my writing, the line breaks, how things sound, and most importantly, to revise and edit my own work. It’s kept me humble.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I think being an editor has added immensely to my own journey as a writer. Not only do you learn to critique your own writing, but you learn to look at your own writing less from a personal angle, and more in context of larger literary boundaries. As writers we are often mired into very narrow boundaries, but as an editor when you read so much from the world over, your own writing grows wings, and is enabled into gaining distance, that lends important perspective to a writer.
On the flip side, as an editor you cannot ignore grammatical errors, badly put out writing, even on casual social media posts, because your mind doesn’t stop working as an editor, even while not editing! That can be a pain, but one has to learn to lighten up sometimes, I think.
Smita Sahay: Always. Editing sharpens my clarity and precision. It also teaches humility. I’ve seen how vulnerable writers are when they hand over their work. That makes me edit with care, not control.
And as a writer, I’ve learned to unfurl with more curiosity. Editing has taught me to listen to what a piece wants to be, not what I want it to become. I’m slowly learning to extend that same permission to my own writing.
Reading the best of contemporary literature, week after week, changes you. It keeps you honest.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: My work as editor has sharpened how I edit my writing. I know how difficult it is to part with what you have written and accept another’s opinion about it, so I am extra sensitive to how I navigate this space with my writers. Let out yet rein in. That’s a difficult balance that helps me edit my own work, take an objective stance towards it. It is difficult.
Writers are inherently editors too, because writing is only one part of creating a written piece. As a professional editor, it is sometimes difficult to switch tracks between editing a writer’s work and writing or editing my own. I switch to writer-editor mode almost from the word go, editing as I write and that not only slows the process but also comes in the way of working organically, which is what I used to do before I became a full-time editor.
At the same time, while editing a writer’s work, the editor brings her own sensibilities and sensitivities to bear upon the writing while keeping an objective distance from her own writing style. So, you walk in the writer’s shoes, in your own shoes and in the shoes of the characters and situations that the writer presents. It makes of the writer-editor a unique individual, combining several worlds within her, becoming as plural as can be imagined or perhaps beyond what one could otherwise imagine. This plurality has helped me step away from my writing and assess it objectively, and so murdering of my darlings comes easier now.
Nishi Pulugurtha: It does. If not at the first draft stage, in later stages it definitely does. Each of these are interdependent and affect and influence one another. I think it is helpful too.
TBR: In the age of Insta reels and social media, do you find the idea of instant gratification affecting the way literary magazines publish content, and in the way they present themselves?
Sonia J Nair: You know, many veteran writers often talk about how they never heard back from newspapers they sent poems to in their younger days. But now that’s largely a thing of the past. I think there is faster connectivity and greater consciousness regarding presentation across platforms. sometimes this can impact the sort of work we want to put out there, but then again, mindful editors can always avoid such traps.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I often hear a lot of people saying that social media has ruined attention spans and the way people read. I think this happens every decade or so, things change and yet they balance out too. Even serious readers today read differently from the reading that used to happen maybe thirty years ago. I think I’m happy, as long as people are reading. As for presentation, sure why not. Nothing wrong with evolving with the times, as long as one’s core area of reading remains. To not be sure of everything, is the only constant I want.
Smita Sahay: The pull is real. The urge to reduce complex work into bite-sized, scroll-friendly content is strong. But literary writing needs slowness. Most pieces resist virality. They demand quiet, discomfort, and rereading.
We rely on social media to help our contributors find their readers. But we demand that our audience meet us where we are. We refuse to dilute or over-explain. Our Instagram is not an advertisement; it’s an invitation. Literary and feminist integrity matter more than virality.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: I think social media has made literary magazines step out of their pages and reach out in diverse ways to their readers as required by the age in which we live. It has made it easier for us to take our work to a larger audience, remind them of our presence, draw attention to our writers and their published works, but I don’t think the instant gratification associated with social media has affected our ways of working, though it has affected how some people read.
Nishi Pulugurtha: I think literary magazines work hard to collate and edit work. They work in spite of the desire of instant gratification. I don’t think it affects the content of the literary magazines or the way they curate them.
TBR: If all of us agree that translation is the way forward, what special role do you think good editing and literary magazines can play in this journey?
Sonia J Nair: By supporting translations, welcoming them and ensuring that they are sensitive translations. The idea is to not be in a hurry to publish translations rather, give the work time, let it grow and come into its own. Literary magazines should show the patience of a farmer.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I think literary magazines have an important role to play in this. In fact, this is one area, where I think literary (and semi-literary) magazines have contributed the most. At TBR we have consciously promoted translations time and again, which has encouraged more translators in grabbing limelight, and many new translators from various languages writing into us. I see so many other magazines today carrying translations, and the very fact that we have Nishi with us, who edits an entire magazine focussed on translation drives the point home.
Smita Sahay: Translation is a political and poetic act. And for a magazine like Usawa, which believes in dismantling hierarchies, it’s essential.
We’ve published translations since our very first issue in 2018. Today, under the brilliant guidance of Sonakshi Srivastava, our Translations Editor, we’re expanding that section with care and ambition.
We’ve started the Usawa Translations Grant and supported one grantee so far — Ajmal Kamal. We aim to formalise and broaden this initiative across the subcontinent.
Translation lets us honour the vastness of language, and resist the colonising impulse to centre only English. It’s not just the future of literature — it’s its beating heart.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: Literary magazines have been the first homes for many writers and translators. It takes more time to publish a book than it does to publish a single piece of translation in a magazine, work with an editor and hone one’s craft. In that sense, literary magazines are poised just right to disseminate translation, help writers find their feet and a dedicated readership before pitching a book.
Magazines that focus on translation, like Antonym that Nishi is editing this year, play a crucial role in helping translators find a platform, develop their voice and an audience.
Nishi Pulugurtha: The range and variety of literature in languages other than English is huge. I must say that I did not know of Banu Mushtaq till I heard of her nomination. That is surely unfortunate but then the range of literature in the several Indian languages is enormous. Also the languages in India and numerous and it is really not possible for one to know them all. We need to know about them surely and translation is the only way.
It is really good to see several literary magazines publishing translation as well. This bodes well for translation. As I note earlier Antonym Magazine that I am editing this year is devoted entirely to translation. It has an online presence and a quarterly print version as well. It is a magazine that publishes translations in all genres, from all languages into English, publishes book reviews of translations and interviews with translators as well. The Spring Issue was published in March and the Summer Issue is ready to go to press.
I am delighted to see several others working in the area. Anubad Patrika that Bitasta Ghoshal publishes is focused on translations into Bengali from several languages. Elami Publications and Purnima Tammireddy I know work in publishing translations into Telugu from Indian languages. There are several writers who not just write but translate. We Indians have that advantage as most of us move through several languages with ease.
TBR: Literary magazines operate within their own spheres of focus or excellence, thus creating small islands of engagement. However, do you think editors of these magazines could/ should collaborate once in a while to create a more dynamic literary space?
Sonia J Nair: I absolutely love the idea! We should try it sometime! Will be like the Marvel crossovers!
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: I would really love that. I strongly believe in growing a community around literature and those who engage in it. This is a passion for all of us, and joining hands, coming together to collaborate, can only make things better. We live in crazy times really, the only way forward can be together, I think.
Smita Sahay: Yes, yes, and YES.
I deeply admire what other independent magazines are doing. We each operate with our own editorial vision, but at the end of the day, we’re all part of the same ecosystem.
Editors, I believe, are a little mad. It takes a special kind of person to obsess over commas, clarity, and cultural context. We should hold hands more often.
Collaboration allows us to read beyond our own bubble, to challenge our blind spots, to offer our readers work that surprises even us. The commons we want in literature will not appear on its own — we must make it, together.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: Absolutely! Islands of engagement and interaction are great, because they offer nichés that writers need. But the idea of diverse magazines collaborating and bringing that diversity to readers is a tantalizing thought. Collaboration rather than isolation is something Maitreyee and I have been discussing for a long time, and this panel discussion is one of the outcomes of that thought process.
Nishi Pulugurtha: Definitely. Collaboration is of great importance whether one is working in the field of writing, editing or translating. It is because of this that the four of us are here together, on this platform. We have been learning from one another, in ways that we may not be able to completely explicate, but I strongly believe that there is learning happening. Also, a sense of belonging, to a community that is not bound by borders of any kind, anyone can become a part of it. I hope that more collaborations happen too.
TBR: Tell us about one rewarding experience as a literary editor/writer that has stayed with you.
Sonia J Nair: At the risk of sounding cliched, every time I write, or publish an issue of Samyukta poetry or curate Anantha- the poetry festival, it is a rewarding experience. This is because it is literally my blood that flows through the portal. It is an extension of my soul. And so, on that note, thank you Maitreyee and The Bangalore Review for this opportunity. Truly grateful.
Maitreyee B Chowdhury: There have been many really. My most rewarding experience though has been in giving place to those who in spite of their good work cannot get entry into magazines where only well-known names are published. Literature I believe is democratic in its very essence, and there can be no exclusive clubs or gate keepers here.
Smita Sahay: In July 2023, a horrifying video of a mob parading two disrobed women in Manipur circulated widely. In response, we tried to curate a special issue on writings from Manipur.
Due to misunderstandings and online backlash, we were accused of opportunism and had to recall the call.
Much later, in May 2025, we collaborated with The Little Journal of Northeast India to co-create a “North-East literature special”. That partnership between Matchbox by Usawa and TLJNE marked by care, demanding debates and discussions, and mutual learning, remains one of my most rewarding editorial experiences.
Also, our new team has brought such fresh energy — writers, social media managers, readers, and others. It’s been beautiful to build something together.
Sucharita Dutta-Asane: There are so many that keep me going and enthusiastic about the work, but those that immediately come to mind are engagements with writers who come with a kernel of a story and go on to develop it into a full-fledged narrative, developing ideas that did not occur to them when they first sent in their submissions. This is why I often overlook the incompleteness of a submission and encourage the writer to develop a story that has potential beyond that which the writer envisaged. The sense of discovery that the writer experiences and discusses is worth every inch of the journey.
Nishi Pulugurtha: The immense amount of reading that I get to do. Editing, definitely, is a hard and time-consuming work, but it allows one to hone one’s own writing skill as well.
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Participants
– Sonia J Nair edits Samyukta poetry
– Maitreyee B Chowdhury edits The Bangalore Review
– Smita Sahay edits the Usawa Literary Review
– Sucharita Dutta-Asane is fiction editor at The Bangalore Review and editor of the RED RIVER PUBLISHING s Prose imprint, the RED RIVER Story
– Nishi Pulugurtha edits The Antonym magazine’s translation wing
Photo by Joey Huang on Unsplash
