Virtual Only, Recorded
Many of us write because we feel passionately about an idea which we want to share with our readers – whether it’s about human rights, justice, climate change, or anything else. Yet we don’t want to end up with a book that delivers a diatribe, or a modern version of an Aesop’s fable, brandishing our moral message in people’s faces. How does a writer talk about social issues without coming across as judgmental or preachy, putting off their readers? Harini Nagendra is an ecologist who has written seven books, with her non-fiction work covering
issues of ecology and environmental justice. She also writes The Bangalore Detectives Club mystery series, set in 1920s Bangalore, weaving issues of caste, class and gender discrimination into fiction. Drawing on her experiences of writing non-fiction and fiction, this workshop will discuss a range of issues including whether to start with the story, or the message; what techniques we can use to integrate social issues into our books, and craft techniques that can be helpful – drawing on examples from a range of contemporary and older books.
