Report from 13th December by Sarah Noon
Susmita Bhattacherya was born in Mumbai. Her debut novel, A Normal State of Mind, was published in 2015 and she is currently working on her second novel. She writes across several genres and enjoys experimenting. Susmita also likes to write short stories, flash fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction. She has written for radio and is also involved with writing audio-drama. She visits us this evening to share her journey as a writer and to talk about the process both before and after that very significant publication date.
As a child, Susmita tells us, she loved writing stories, illustrating them and “…creating little books…” which she then made into her own library – making her own tickets and issuing her books to family and friends. When she was fourteen, one of her short stories was published in a local paper. However, she shares with us at this point that she did not think she wanted to be a writer. She did not consider this to be something that she would do as an adult. She’d never met a writer or seen one “…writers were these great people who existed.” Susmita simply regarded her writing as a “great hobby.” Instead, Susmita tells us, she became a graphic designer. This changed when she got married and gave up her job to join her husband who was in the Merchant Navy, travelling the world on an oil tanker! She did this for about 7 years, and whilst travelling she “…had all the time in the world…” to paint and write. She explains that even though she enjoyed this, she still didn’t really consider writing as a career. She did however, enjoy travelling around the world and “…having many adventures along the way.”
When her husband left the navy, she says, they settled in the UK. Because of her husband’s career change (he decided to do a PhD in Cardiff), Susmita explains that her life changed too. She enrolled in a creative writing evening class, simply because she “…loved writing stories.” She tells us that her tutor was very supportive and gave her confidence, suggesting that she did a Masters degree in creative writing. Shew tells us that this in turn got her thinking that she could do something with her writing. Soon after, she submitted one of the stories she had written on the course to an academic journal and it was selected for its 20th anniversary edition. Susmita describes this as the “…starting point” of her writing career. At the same time, she began a Masters degree at Cardiff University for the practice and teaching of creative writing. The element of teaching creative writing specifically interested Susmita because she felt that even if she didn’t become a writer, she would be able to teach creative writing and she had already taught English as an Additional Language. She tells us that she embarked upon the course (“one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life.”) and considered herself “…a teacher rather than a writer.” This was Susmita’s first experience of academia and she tells us that she was a little uncertain at first, describing it as “life changing…” (it should also be noted that Susmita achieved a Distinction for her Masters!).
Susmita’s novel A Normal State of Mind began here as her dissertation. She tells us that she was “…absolutely frightened.” Telling her supervisor that she would not be able to write a novel. Having been reminded by her supervisor that this was the time to do it, whilst she had the time and the support available, she began to develop her novel. The story was set in Mumbai (“…write what you know and what you’re comfortable with”). She demonstrates the importance of this by telling us about a piece of writing she had done on her course – a postcard had been given as a visual prompt, and she wrote about flowers blooming in October and November, not realising that it was not the same in the UK as it was in India. This was when she was advised to write about what she knew, and so she set her novel in Mumbai!
Susmita tells us that as a result of this decision, she was able to use lots of personal experiences to influence her plot. She says “It was really important to me to talk about those issues [and the] things that I have experienced in the city that I was born in and I grew up in.”
Susmita wrote her novel three times. The whole project took her almost 10 years (2006 – 2015). Part of the reason it took so long is, she tells us, because “life happened along the way”.
Interestingly, Susmita explains that Chapter 1 was the last chapter she wrote “I wrote it in a very haphazard sort of a way.” Her supervisor had advised her to write the climax first, or the thing that she was most excited about – giving her incentive to carry on. Ironically, the scene that she first wrote did not end up being in the final draft of her book. She explains that the ending took the longest (she was stuck in it “…for years…”). But once she had written the ending, chapter 1 fell into place. Because of her Distinction, Susmita was then awarded a mentoring bursary which allowed her to “…get her novel into shape.”
Whilst Susmita was working on her novel, she tells us that she was also writing short stories and poems, sending them out to journals and magazines in order to develop a portfolio. This ensured that she was still getting published and getting known.
When Susmita sent her final draft of her novel to agents (about 50 of them), she got several requests for the full manuscript, but were followed by rejections – something which is not uncommon when trying to get an agent. She describes this as “heart-breaking.” Interestingly, when Susmita sent her manuscript off to publishers in India, they rejected it. She questions whether this is down to the LGBTQ themes within the story.
Susmita goes on to explain how a twist of fate then changed the course of events. She had one of her short stories published in the Welsh Nationalist Magazine, and a friend then tagged a link to this via Facebook, to an editor. This editor loved the short story and asked Susmita if she had a novel. She sent A Normal State of Mind to the editor who then wanted to publish it!
The book was due to be published in October of that year. Unfortunately, in August Susmita was diagnosed with cancer. As a result, publication was delayed. However, Susmita shares with us how it was the goal of getting her novel published that gave her a focus during her treatment and recovery – “I had a purpose. I had something to look forward to.” Susmita goes on to show us photographs from the launch day – in Waterstones, Plymouth in 2015, accompanied by some of the support group from her treatment. Soon after publication, the rights were also sold to a publisher in India, where it was longlisted for the Word to Screen prize (“It could have made it to a Bollywood film”).
Some of the highlights of having her book published include appearing at the Hay festival and being Corbyn’s Book at Bedtime (“…he was interested in reading about a Hindu lesbian…”).
Susmita also tells us about her blog – part of which was a murder-mystery with an Indian grandmother solving crimes in Cardiff. Despite Susmita telling us that the blog did not have a large following, a producer of Radio 4 drama saw this and contacted her, leading to her work in writing for radio. Her advice is “…not to keep your stories, your words to yourself. Share it. The world needs to see it.” The producer commissioned her to write an essay about her cancer and writing. She describes going into a studio and recording as “…an experience…”
Following this, Susmita tells us that she selected some of the short stories that she had been writing whilst drafting her novel, and they were published as a selection of short stories launched in P & G Wells in 2018. This went on to win awards in 2019. They were also serialised on Radio 4.
Susmita became a lecturer at The University of Winchester after submitting a piece of writing to the Winchester Writers’ Festival, coming first in the Memoirs category. She has now been at the university since 2017.
She tells us that it is all about having courage to send out work to magazines, competitions etc. – it’s about being able to “keep going and being quite determined.” She says she has to keep pushing herself to write and submit.
It is through Susmita’s determination to get her writing out there, that she has absolutely become a writer … something she never dreamed she’d be.
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