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Things That Sing
The Art of Holding On, Letting Go
Speakers
Every joke, facial expression, song and stick of furniture we inherit from those we lived with and loved tells its own story. Of continuity, of pasts and the present. Writers A.T. Boyle and Shinie Antony, who put together the collection exObjects, The Art of Holding On, Letting Go (Om Books), delve into the micro histories and macro memories of things left behind. The eleven authors have re-envisaged people, places and things lost, but certainly not forgotten.
Join Vikram Sampath, whose late, beloved mother infused him with her love for classical music, and Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, the editor of this volume, along with Boyle and Antony, as they talk about the hum and heart of belongings.
The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Presented by:
In collaboration with:
Speakers
AT Boyle
A.T. Boyle started out as a copywriter on an international book club, moving from London to become managing editor of illustrated books in Bath where her first stories were published. Founding and ongoing editorships of a BBC children’s magazine were followed by publisher roles in Oxford, Cambridge and London. Book and magazine writing and the launch of online book reviews for a global telecoms company continued alongside managing digital awards for the UK government, then expansion of her arts-based work further north.
Her first story for adult readers was shortlisted for an international award and launched as a dual language multimedia drama with creative workshops. In 2023 she ran the Sadabahar (evergreen) project, connecting India and England through writing, community outreach and digital. Following the death of her parents at the height of Covid – their obituaries were published in The Guardian newspaper – she began the exObjects collaborative
Shinie Antony
Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bengaluru. Her books include Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith, Can’t, Barefoot and Pregnant, The Girl Who Couldn’t Love. She has compiled the anthologies Boo, Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman and Hell Hath No Fury. The anthology exObjects: The Art of Holding On, Letting Go has been co-edited with A.T. Boyle. Director of Bangalore Literature Festival and Bengaluru Poetry Festival, her story A Dog’s Death won the Commonwealth Short Story Asia prize 2002.
Vikram Sampath
Bangalore-based historian Dr. Vikram Sampath
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician. The book has even been adapted for a play, Gauhar, by Lillette Dubey. He was among four writers and artists selected as writers-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015. Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a senior research fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He was also a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, Eisenhower Global Fellow and a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is either an ‘accidental’ editor who strayed into publishing from a career in finance and accounts or an ‘accidental’ finance person who found his calling in publishing. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He writes regularly on books, films and music for a number of platforms. He is also a published author, with three books to his credit: Whims – A Book of Poems (published by Writers Workshop), Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin), The Swinging ’70s: Stars, Style and Substance in Hindi Cinema (2024).
