It does not matter if you are a serial submitter or a  sporadic one. If you have a dozen pieces stowed away in your laptop or you create something for each call. In either case, you are well aware that publishing is a capricious domain. Every author accumulates rejections. Some wear them as badges of honour; others delete the emails as soon as they arrive. Some immediately rework the pieces and resubmit; others keep them aside for weeks. All writers give each other, and themselves, the same advice — keep writing and keep submitting.  It is not without reason that authors use the words ‘finding a good home’ for their words. After all the love, effort and time they spend on composing these, it is natural to be emotionally attached to them. Sometimes, the journey of a piece becomes interestingly entwined with the personal and professional journey of an author. In this section, we bring you two such stories.

Read on to join Ramanjaneya Sharaph and Sudha Subramanian’s  pieces on their arduous, moving, and finally, rewarding journeys. Their compelling accounts are a reminder that in writing, like in life itself, the journey is as important as the destination.

Dr. Shalini Mullick