Nilanjana is a parent, writer, poet, blogger and a market research professional.  Born in Kolkata, India, brought up in New Delhi and West Africa, her mailing address has changed some 15 times so far and she is always ready for the next change.  She believes in travelling light, and a sense of humour, along with the passport, is top on her packing list. Dipping into other cultures and countries, whether as an expat resident or as a tourist, refreshes her. Her bucket list includes a round-the-world trip and writing a historical novel set in Mughal India. She speaks English, Bengali and Hindi, and understands more Arabic than she can account for.

Her poems, short stories and travel memoirs have been published in both print and on-line.  Her first book was a collection of short fiction in Bengali called Seemaheen Bidesh (Borderlessly Foreign).  Her work has appeared in print in Ananda Lipi, Social Potpourri – An Anthology, and online in eFiction India, We Have a Story and other forums.  She was a contributing editor in Inner Child magazine, where she had her own byline -  Passport to Our World – a monthly travel feature which ran to a 24 part series.

She is presently working on a book of poetry - The Art and Smarts of Bystanding - which explores themes of love, loss, and the singular sense of homelessness an expatriate life entails. Another WIP is her second collection of short fiction, called The Intricacies of Return, and a novella loosely titled Moonlit Waters set in post-Revolution Cairo. She is married and lives in Bahrain at present with her husband and son, and her collection of Ganapatis.   She can often be found on-line at Madly-in-Verse.

Nilanjana has a school leaving certificate from West African Examinations Council, a first class degree in Maths from Delhi University, a diploma in Marketing from Chartered Institute of Marketing,UK; and has worked in four different countries on some cool assignments over the last 30 years. However, she takes greater pride her ability to make her home anywhere; in her survival skills in unknown cultural environments; her useful and keen eye for detail; and being able to navigate different landscapes of language, beliefs and customs. She has written well over 2000 poems starting from age 8 and jealously guards her amazement and love for nature through a largely urbanised life.

It is excruciating to pick favourites – there are too many. But right now right here top-of-mind names - Ernest Hemingway, Daphne du Maurier, Margaret Mitchell, Amitav Ghosh, Julian Barnes, Graham Greene, Alexandre Dumas, Paul Gallico, Alice Munroe, Mary Renault, P.G. Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham among authors. Tagore, Jibanananda Das, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Carol Ann Duffy, Eliot, Larkin, Tennyson, Cavafy and Cohen among poets. By no means an exhaustive list.

The difference between being a blogger and an author? Wide and then some!

Assuming you are blogging just for personal expression - blogging is a more spontaneous, fluid thing.  You blog to a schedule, sure, but no-one else sets that schedule apart from you.  You are free to write what you want, anything goes, no rules on profanity, no curbs on genre, no themes unless you choose them, no word limits. The discipline on blogs is self-discipline.  Blogging is also more immediate in its results, more interactive - publish is a button you hit and hey, there you are! Your post is live and out in the world, and the editing and fine tuning can go on afterwards.  You can withdraw/delete your posts with the push of a button too, if you later wish to. So the quality control is more relaxed, and can be done after publishing also, nothing is cast in stone. Depending on how large your readership and how deep their connect with you, the feedback comes within minutes and days. Each blogpost, unlike the chapters in a book, is complete in itself, independent of any subsequent ones.  Your thoughts are free to jump around where they/you will.

Writing towards publication requires a totally different sort of discipline and dedication. Most publishers set the theme, word counts, even spelling rules, whether British or American and so on.  The process itself is long drawn out, no pushing buttons and immediate results.  It is less interactive, only a few people involved as beta-readers and editors.  The writing itself is a lonelier process, more complex in terms of data research, and often requires several drafts and redrafts before it is even presentable.  Even the shortest story is likely to have a longer ‘arc’ than a blog-post, not in terms of the word-counts but in terms of writing effort and reader response. In fact it must be written to ‘stay’ with the readers for a much longer period than something they read on a blog.  Published writing, unlike blogposts, must aspire to be timeless, or at least towards longer expiry dates.  The editorial quality control on the writing is far more rigorous. Conventional route publication therefore still commands a different sense of respect both among the writers’ community and readers.

The best thing about being a blogger and a published author has to be the learning that happens.  You can draw on the rigorous, prolonged discipline of the publication process to hone your blogging skills.  It works the other way too, the blogging experience makes the writing sharper and crisper, more able to connect, more in-tune with the readers.  A win-win without a shred of doubt.