Author Pratap Reddy: Early life and dream fueled a writer's journey in Canada

Author Pratap Reddy

Author Pratap Reddy immigrated to Canada from India in 2002 with the dream of becoming a writer. The challenges which newly arrived immigrants in Canada face gave him the stimulus to weave tales of fiction on the subject of immigrant experience. His latest collection of short stories is Remaindered People and Other Stories. His collection Weather Permitting and Other Stories was selected by Diaspora Dialogues for their mentoring program and later in 2016 Guernica Editions published the book.

Author Pratap Reddy

Pratap is enrolled in a creative writing program on Poetry at the University of Toronto, and has completed a creative writing course from the Humber School for Writers, and a program on writing short fiction from Chang School of Metropolitan University. He is currently working on a novel Praful’s Errands. Pratap is the treasurer and a board member of Diaspora Dialogues—a nonprofit supporting new writing and encouraging new writers He also is a board member of Bootmakers—The Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada. He lives in Mississauga with his wife and son. Discover more: Pratapreddy.com.

Early years in India and plenty of books shaped writing

On Creative Writing: What life experiences have shaped your writing style?

Pratap Reddy: I grew up in India, when it was a proudly socialist country and perpetually in penury. The electronic age with all its multi-faced charms would not dawn for decades. The avenues for diversion were very limited. There even came a time when import of Hollywood films was curtailed. What remained, apart from the obstreperous and omnipresent Indian cinema, was whatever entertainment print media offered. It is to the credit of the government they did not balk from importing books. So generations grew up reading books, a majority of them imported from Great Britain and to a lesser degree from the USA.

Captivated by the escapist fiction offered by writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Alistair Maclean, Desmond Bagley, and last but not least James Hadley Chase, I had come to believe that authors were veritable magicians, creating an illusory world into which we could escape. Even as a child, it was my desperate desire that someday I would be one of them.

On Creative Writing: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how has this happened? Through writing experience? By reading a lot? From writing courses, writing communities, or something else?

More at home in books than in real life

Pratap Reddy: My audacity to take up writing stemmed from the fact that I loved to read and held the belief that I could mine my life experience for plot ideas. I have always been a voracious reader since my childhood days. I was more at home in the fictional world of spies and detectives than the real world which to me meant mostly onerous home-work and excruciating exams.

Only after immigrating to Canada did I find the right stimulus to get my creative juices flowing. Not surprisingly, I wrote about the trials and tribulations of new immigrants to Canada, a subject I had first-hand knowledge of.

I am a great believer in acquiring academic knowledge. I enrolled at the Humber School for Writers, realizing that you needed to learn and keep abreast of the stylistic trends in literary fiction. A little later, I undertook a course in short story writing at Chang School of Toronto Metropolitan University in a bid to hone and polish the manuscript I had produced. I am currently enrolled at University of Toronto’s creative writing courses on Poetry as I have started dabbling in verse.

Theme of immigration runs through work

On Creative Writing: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?

Pratap Reddy: Sigh! I’ve written three books (not counting a volume of verse). All the three books deal with immigration though the focus and perspective of each of them is slightly different.

Immigration seeped into my book of poems too! Being an intuitive writer, I write about what I know best. Nonetheless, continuing to write only about immigrants places a severe restriction on an author. I am happy to state that my work-in-progress novel Praful’s Errands stays clear of the topic of immigration and is set in India. It’s going to be a cross between Dickens and Erle Stanley Gardner.

On Creative Writing: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Pratap Reddy: I would like to state unequivocally that I am a plotter – for the simple reason that I start writing only after I have an idea, even if it an infinitesimal one, upon which I develop the poem, short story, or novel. Yet, I cannot claim that I’ve the entire

plot drawn up to the last detail before I begin to write. I have a picture in my head of how the piece of writing, ie the canvas, must look but the individual brushstrokes will have their say on the eventual outcome. On the other hand, I’m not so much of a pantser that I can seat myself before the computer and expect a poem, a short story or a novel to descend on me. For me writing is like undertaking a journey. I know the general direction and the destination but have no knowledge of the stops on the way. I’m equipped with a compass but not a roadmap.

On Creative Writing: If you’ve been published, how did you find your publisher?

Finding a publisher 'hardest thing in life'

Pretap Reddy: Finding a publisher was by far the hardest thing in my life. Even after taking an expensive creative writing course, my chances didn’t improve much. Especially, since my book was a collection of stories – it was a popularly held view that publishers aren’t enthusiastic about collections.

I bought a copy of that oversized volume Writers' Handbook and sent out my MS to publishers. Large publishing houses expect agented submissions, so I submitted my MS to smaller presses. Very small presses, unfortunately. In hindsight, it was a mistake. Very small presses are extremely picky as they produce a limited number of titles in a year. It was a time-consuming business - a reject letter takes months to arrive.

I sent out stories to literary magazines. Some e-zines published my stories. At least this helped in puffing up my literary CV.

I entered competitions hoping winning a prize would be the ticket to getting published. I won the Mississauga Arts Council award for Best Emerging writer, and I was selected by Diaspora Dialogues for their mentoring program. It kind of improved my profile but no publisher made a beeline to my door. A friend suggested I send my MS to Guernica Editions as they are very receptive to work of writers of different ethnicities. I did. And the rest is history.

On Creative Writing: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?

Pratap Reddy: The advice I would give any wannabe writer is: a. Start writing. Now! Don’t wait. Write whatever comes to your mind. Don’t wait for an inspiration to strike. Develop the craft of writing—unlike a pencil, the more you write the sharper it gets. Non-use can make your writing skills blunt. You can choose or change your art form/genre whenever you wish. Don’t wait until retirement to start writing. You’ll end up writing only memoirs. There are more memoir-writers than there are readers in the real world. b. Don’t be your own critic There are plenty of critics in the marketplace. You don’t have to do their job for them. Keep writing consistently and confidently and resist the temptation to critique every sentence you compose. The more you write, the better your output will turn out to be. Remember the old adage—practice makes perfect c. Read. A lot—especially stuff in the genre you are working on. d. Be cautious about writing groups. While it is advisable to join such groups, be aware that half-baked ideas could be continually thrown at you, making you have doubts about yourself and your work.

Thanks to River Street Writing for co-ordinating this interview!