Vernacular Quills Reading Challenge 2015
The Indian literary scene is one fire. Check.
Indian Publishing is exploding. Ya Check.
India is reading more. Check Again.
But is just Indian writing in English Indian Literature?
Two years back we started with a fun initiative called Indian Quills Reading Challenge – IQRC. 2013 – 2015 we have had many IQRCians, many IQR Champions and loads of fun! Every book review added to the database was pure celebration…But we have a grouse…..
Among thousands of book reviews and hundreds of books added to our ever expanding database of Indian books and reviews, hardly 1% of titles are regional/ vernacular language books 🙁
English books are great but our regional language literature like our regional cinema is a class apart…
And we are going to try and explore that class this time around at TTP! We bring to you a reading challenge that will take you, dear #Pensievers, to your roots…it will take you to the some places and people your parents or even grand parents talk about, to memories that have started gathering dust and to some literary buds savouring Desi Tadka…
Vernacular Quills Reading Challenge (VQRC) is an attempt to bring the reviews of books in Vernacular/ Regional Indian languages scattered all over under one database at The Tales Pensieve. Going forward with this site’s underlying partiality with Indian authors, the challenge will also serve as a collective effort to promote Indian literature and take stories very unique to Indian culture and its way of life to at least one more reader who wasn’t yet aware of these literary gems.
We invite each and all who can read any other language other than English to attempt to read at least ONE BOOK this year and participate in this effort. Read on…We are going to make you very greedy for your attempt in this effort 🙂
p.s. If you are an Indian Quills Reading Challenger you will be very much aware of the process we will follow for this reading challenge. It’s a ditto! Still read on…lest you miss something.
Guidelines
a. Anyone who reads Indian literature, in any language apart from English, can join the challenge, do you blog or not is not a criteria.
b. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Graphical, translations all forms of Indian writing are welcome.
c. We have listed the 22 official languages of Indian in the challenge banner but books written in any Indian language or dialect are eligible for the challenge.
d. The challenge will run from April 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015.
e. The books to be part of the challenge could have been released anytime since evolution of printing (no ceiling on that) and you can also link reviews of books read anytime, any number of years back. The intension is to build a near perfect and complete database of books in Indian vernacular languages.
f. If you have any confusion wether the book you have opted for, qualifies for the challenge or not just ask us.
g. If you are a blogger but do not write about books on your blog, you are welcome to use the non-bloggers signup for the challenge.
h. The book read should be in an Indian vernacular language but the review written by the participant should be in English or Hindi. The idea is to take regional languages books to a larger audience who just know to read English or Hindi or maybe both and are not aware of these regional gems.
Signing-up
For Bloggers
1. Publish a post/ page on your blog telling your readers about your signing up for VQR Challenge 2015 and lock in the number of books you will be reading as part of the challenge – which will be your VQR Target.
2. Sign up for VQR Challenge 2015 by entering your details into the linky, here
3. Once your details and VQR Target are updated into the VQR Challengers 2015 list, you can start linking up your book reviews here
For Non-Bloggers
1. Lock in the number of books you will be reading as part of the challenge – which will be your VQR Target.
2. Sign up for VQR Challenge 2015 by putting in an eMail to us at – – stating that you want to join the challenge and the number of books you intend to read for VQR Challenge 2015 (your VQR Target)
3. Once your details and VQR Target are updated into the VQR Challengers 2015 list, you can start rating & writing short reviews here
…And then
We will be updating the VQR Challenge database in the first week of every month for the submissions of the previous month and with that will be updated your challenge account details i.e. your VQR Target vis-a-vis your submissions.
VQRC is a tough challenge but the prizes are worth the effort 🙂
Vernacular Quills Reader of the Month
You get a chance to get interviewed on TTP as a TOP READER and we will feature you right here! And at a lot of other places…all over the web.
Vernacular Quills Reading champion
TOP READER of the year! The one with the highest number of book reviews against his/ her name on the VQR Challengers 2015 list wins this one super prize:
A winning memento from The Tales Pensieve
a 4 book hamper from Penguin Random House India
And get featured on TTP!
So all set?
It’s Time To Explore The Desi Gems And Put Some Spotlight On Them
Welcome to Vernacular Quills Reading Challenge – Season 1 book lovers! Let’s continue to build the biggest collection of Indian writing on the web. Get, Set Go….
