I think we’ve successfully managed to prove that we here at the Desi Writers Lounge are dedicated to this reading series. Our next in line will be held on July 20, 2008.

Interested writers must send in their material no later than July 16, 2008 to have their material featured in this session. Material received after this date, will be featured in our next session instead, for which dates and timings will be confirmed after July 20.

All material must be mailed in to readings@desiwriterslounge.net and remember to forward this address to anyone you think may be interested. We are particularly interested in members reading out their original, never before seen, pieces.

Watch this space for venue confirmations.

We’ll be scoping out The Academy of Letters’ Writers House today for a chance to see what it’d be like if we had our reading there. Aside from the fact that it’s a little farther away from the mostly central locations of our previous readings, (it’s in the Shifa Hospital area), it might be an excellent place. To answer the “might”s, we’re making our way there.

In other news, the mass marketing campaign mentioned much, much earlier is moving towards a green light. We’re drafting action plans for that process, thinking about advertising our website as well as our readings and generally subdividing responsibilities in the forum. While as currently, our moderators are responsible for the entire forums, they’ll be responsible for specific forums, where their word will be law (no, no I jest. My word will still be law! :D). But you get the gist of it.

Again, we’re asking local designers out there, or who know other locals, to please email us in (my email address is in the profile) and let us know whether or not they’d be interested. I have an international guy, but since we don’t know the current going price, I can’t be sure whether it’s perfect or overpriced. So come on, peeps! Show us that creativity you have holed within you!

Not much else going on. Reading’s in July. The email went out yesterday. If you’re interested in sending in your work, member or not, please do so to readings@desiwriterslounge.net . Surprise me! 🙂

– TPTB

Not only did it go through without a hitch, it was a smashing success! We had twelve writers in attendance, and four pieces to go through. Unlike before, where it took so much time focusing on just one piece, we made it through each, and even introduced two new members into our fold. The full details are up here, so go ahead and check ’em out.

Next reading’s planned for July (primarily because a few won’t be available in August), with a possible venue set for The Writers House in the Academy of Letters; the Editor of the English section was in attendance at our reading. But read the whole thing at the link above.

Because we’re adopting the whole open door philosophy when it comes to submission of pieces to the reading, we’d appreciate if you could keep those pieces coming and they’ll make it to the reading on a first come, first serve basis. Do not fear: each piece sent in will have its say. As always, material must be sent in to readings@desiwriterslounge.net.

That’s it.

– TPTB

Venue’s been confirmed.

Cafe Incantare. It’s a little place right next to Pizza Hut in F-10 Markaz. You’ll need to go down a few stairs, but the board’s there so it’s hard to miss.

Time’s 5pm. Date’s June 08, 2008.

The formal invitation: Sunday, June 08, 2008 @ Cafe Incantare – 5pm. Dress to impress (lol!).

Remember to send in your work well before June 08, 2008 if you’d like to have it read out and give us time to sort through everything. Deadlines aren’t there, but work will be served up first come, first serve. All material can be sent to this address. Hope to hear from you soon!

– TPTB

A heads up: we’re planning the next reading in a series held by Desi Writers Lounge in Islamabad. As before, we’re asking members in the city, or out of towners who would like to participate, to start sending in their material (short stories, poetry, rambles…it all goes!) to readings@desiwriterslounge.net.

Unfortunately, because we’ll be pressed for time, we’ll have to defer reading of some pieces to future readings. For this purpose, we’ve eliminated any deadlines…if you’re interested in having your work read out and workshopped “live” so to speak, then start sending in your material. Please remember: this is open to people outside of the Lounge as well, so if you know anyone who’d be interested and wants to have their work discussed, pass our email address along. We’ll unveil the time, date and venue in the coming days so keep an eye out for this space! As always, if you have any questions, you know where to find me…

So it’s official: we’re going to be taking Desi Writers Lounge to the streets in the form of bookmarks distributed to local bookstores, nationwide…or at least wherever our members are and who are prepared to canvas the neighborhood.

Before we go there however, we need fresh faced, funky graphic designers. So if you’re interested, know that you will be compensated for your work. Send in your bids as well as a portfolio of past work (if applicable) to the following address: maryam@desiwriterslounge.net.

The word’s out…pass this along to your friends and their friends; we’re on the market and we’re looking. If you think you’re creative, have a funky idea or have a designing bone in your body, mosey along over.

– TPTB

The date for our next reading has tentatively been set for Sunday, May 24 2008. Venues will be announced once we’ve received confirmation. If you’re in Islamabad and you want to participate, please begin sending in your pieces to readings@desiwriterslounge.net. While we cannot promise that your work will be read out, given the time limitations we have, you are encouraged to participate nonetheless, if not in a reading capacity then in a listening and critiquing one. Our readings are more along the lines of workshops, so if you’re interested (and keeping this in mind), drop us a line.

Readings are planned throughout the summer with a six week lapse between each which means late May, late June-early July and late August.

The second reading in the series will have time lines and specific durations for which a piece can be read and critiqued, to ensure that we can fit in at the very least, three pieces in one sitting including breaking for tea.

Though this has not been promoted as such, as our other readings have been planned, we will still be announcing the venue, time and date of the reading on both this blog and the main website. So if you’re interested in participating in whatever capacity, please email us by May 17th so we can make the necessary arrangements.

That’s it.

– TPTB.

We’ve found a solution to the prose problem: regular columns. The columns authors may or may not change with every new issue, thereby bringing new voices to the fold. In any case, having columns will bring something new to the e-zine issues laid out thus far.

A thread has been opened in the forums for brainstorming. We’re hoping for columns a little outside of the run of the mill content that’s usually housed in local magazines and newspapers, catering for the writing crowd. Also things that aren’t restricted to Pakistan; given that our members range from India, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the South Asian area. For that matter, we’ve been getting hits from as far as France, England, Iceland (one of our members resides there…he isn’t desi, for the record) etc. So content needs to be written with that in mind.

If you have any ideas up your sleeve and are a member, head on over to the forums. Chances are, you were on the receiving end of a member wide email with the URL to the discussion thread, included. If you aren’t a member and would still like in on the brainstorming, post your ideas and suggestions in the comments and we’ll credit you if the idea gains approval.

Meanwhile, the follow up reading’s still somewhere up ahead. We’ve decided to have readings every six weeks, instead of every month. This way, it’ll be a little easier for the moderators/organizers to set things up nicely as well as ensure maximum participation. It’s generally acknowledged May’s the time when most people have taken their respective exams. No dates have been finalized yet. However, when they are announced they will be done so both here as well as on our main website. If anyone’s interested to attend as a reader, send in your stuff and we’ll select which pieces will be read out and discussed in detail. From previous experience, we’ve seen the most we can do is 4 pieces. This time, we’ll need to set a time limit to discuss each piece so we can then move on and try to cover more.

So as always, if you’re interested send in your stuff at readings@desiwriterslounge.net and we’ll email you back if your work’s a confirmed read. Whether or not your work is selected for the reading, we encourage you to attend the event nonetheless. This isn’t a closed event, although we’re not marketing it beyond the blog and website. The third or fourth readings will be broadcasted more broadly.

Meanwhile, post away in the comments.

I’ve been getting feedback from a few members that they haven’t been able to generate activity on the forums, because they haven’t been able to log in. It seems a web host change is absolutely imminent, now that we’ve determined for absolute surety that it’s definitely our host and not broadband/Internet connections.

This problem will hopefully be resolved within the next 1-2 weeks or so, as we prepare to make the transition from one server to the next. The site and forums will be shut down from anywhere between 24 to 48 hours, since all information and data will be moved from one host to the next.

We’ll keep you abreast of all things here, because once we go offline this is the only place members can be kept abreast of what’s going on.

– TPTB

This past quarter’s seen a few leap frog movements, especially when it’s come to e-zine selection. While the editor still gets dibs on what goes and what doesn’t, I will be working with the subs to iron out any issues faced in the editing process. That’s an old issue ironed out.

Next up, I’m realizing that right about this time the forums are going to die on us a little bit and come summer when everyone who’s still studying (be it O/A-levels, undergrad, grad, etc) and still responsible for taking exams, is otherwise engaged. Things will free up come May/June/July/August when the summer comes in full swing. Unfortunately, e-zine selection will also take place around that time, and we’re running short on valid prose pieces featured. While we’ve got a ton of great poetry, we’re falling behind in the prose department and this wide deficiency might push us to scale back on the number of issues originally forecast. So instead of having a quarterly ‘zine, we might have two bi-annual issues instead. We’ll be covering the same amount of ground i.e. four months, but the two extra months will be left to selection and editing, thus moving around our schedules.

An active campaign needs to be launched to deal with this; otherwise we can’t expect much improvement in terms of diversity and quality if the same batch of members keep posting. I believe a memberwide email may be helpful in this case, especially when it comes to the dormant crowd who for reasons unknown, have joined but who have never played an active role to date, much less logged into their accounts! It kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it? They’ve all had very valid reasons for registering as well.

I suppose at the end of the day, we’re going to get tired by the apparent lack of commitment being shown by our dormant members, who seem to have registered on the community because it’ll look “cool”. Look, ma! See how intellectual we are? If that’s the reason, this member at least, will be hanging up the administrator’s apron to brighter futures and greener pastures.

We’re all human, after all.