A Brief Bit of Magic
In conversation with Annie Zaidi about her love for theatre and playwriting, where <em>The Comeback</em> came from, and the trust and solidarity that the arts require.
Win a Sponsored Entry to the Desperate Literature Prize 2025
 Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize celebrates the best of new short fiction from around the world. In addition to cash awards and writing retreats, Prize-winning and shortlisted authors have
A Sacred Private Practice
In Alina Gufran’s debut novel No Place to Call My Own, we follow a young woman, Sophia, across countries, cities, and apartments as she searches for a place she can belong to. She becomes entangled with different people at various points in her life---men she meets and shares relationships
Experimenta 2024: New and Old Discoveries
Earlier this month, Experimenta, the biennial festival of experimental film and moving image art celebrated its 12th edition in Bangalore, presenting premieres, interactive discussions, and panels with guest artists, filmmakers and curators. Among its key segments were an international programme featuring films from Asia, Southeast Asia, and its diaspora on
The 27-Step Skincare Routine
My mother-in-law is baffled when she looks at my vanity kit. I have two makeup bags: one filled with lipsticks and the other with essential makeup products. She’s come to terms with my makeup-hoarding habits, but now she’s staring at my large kit brimming with fancy glass bottles,
In the Insect Colony
 The pulsing continued for several moments. In those moments Vera attempted to account for her experience. She understood that a transformation had taken place but its nature was unclear. There were creatures for whom change was mandated. The butterfly emerged from her silkshell
The Decade of the Indian Internet Novel
In a 2019 lecture for The London Review of Books, American writer Patricia Lockwood revealed that she began keeping a diary to track her experience of using the Internet; she describes her interest not as academic but to interrogate how the Internet made her think differently. For the rest of
Open Worlds, Organic Truths
A man tends to his flock of clouds. A beehive’s queen finds herself threatened by members of her royal court. A woman sees messages in the murmurations of starlings. Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World is a collection of twenty-two short stories that explore the natural
The Promises of Possibility
Think back to a moment when you made a split-second decision. What if you had chosen differently? What if you could rewrite your life? In Dharini Bhaskar’s Like Being Alive Twice, we explore this possibility through two diverging timelines---the life that Poppy actually leads, and the life she could
Win a Free Entry to the Desperate Literature Prize 2024
[The window for submissions is now closed.]Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize celebrates the best of new short fiction from around the world. In addition to cash awards and writing retreats, Prize-winning and shortlisted authors have
Time and Space and a Complicated Place
In Tashan Mehta’s Mad Sisters of Esi, islands are alive, memories are dimensions we can navigate, and the universe is a sea on which ships of discovery sail. Two sisters---Laleh and Myung---live within the whale of babel, which houses unimaginable worlds. But Myung wants to leave. Her journey leads
Fever Dreams and Buried Truths
Four defining moments in India’s past and present weave together in Siddhartha Deb’s The Light at the End of the World, an expansive, sweeping novel of fever dreams and buried truths. Real-world history bleeds into the speculative as we follow its characters back in time. In a near-future