Call for Submission
WITH SUPPORT FROM
We are open to picture book biography manuscripts.
Concept Note:
Picture book biographies for children under the age of 8 years is an untapped genre in India. While we are seeing a sudden spurt in India-centric biographies being published, most are in the middle-grade and young-adult space. We see a lack of real life role models for young children from diverse and marginalised backgrounds, from different parts of the country and from different walks of life.
Pickle Yolk Books, with support from Parag, an initiative of Tata Trusts, is keen on bringing out picture book biographies (either fictionalized or pure non-fiction) on the lives of heroes (irrespective of their gender) who have been/ become inspiring role models in their own ways.
The #ownvoices aspect to the submissions will be an important (but not the only) deciding factor. Ownvoices, a global movement that is gathering force, aims to seek out voices on a community from within that community itself (could be of diverse ethnicity, nationality, gender, socio-economic strata, political ideology, minorities of one kind or another). Essentially, it is important that the stories about marginalised identities be written by authors of the same identity group.
We believe in the power of #ownvoices, and in the imperativeness of children’s literature acting as both a reflection and a critique of the socio-political and cultural norms and nuances that ordinary people in different communities/ regions/ sections are impacted by. We want to draw out stories of people who have risen above these, against all odds, and touched others’ lives. We want to publish true stories of real, diverse set of Indians who have made/are making a change in their own big or small ways.
SUBMISSION CRITERIA:
- Ideal word count: under 600. Not exceeding: 1000 words.
2. Ideally, Indian/ living/ not already done to death (eg no Sachin Tendulakar, Dhoni, Narendra Modi or some such, please). An inspiring name from the recent past is fine too (from early 1900s onwards).
3. Stories that highlight certain inspiring aspects of a person’s personality, or inspiring episodes from the person’s life rather than giving a complete linear life history from birth to (where relevant) death.
4. But if details of the person’s birth is important in the context of shaping them into what they went on to do/become, then, by all means, include that too.
5. We’d love to see manuscripts on contemporary heroes (irrespective of the gender) from Indian states from different walks of life whose contributions need to be highlighted.
6. We are interested especially in marginalised and #ownvoices. If there’s an inspiring role model you’d like many more to know about, we are waiting to hear from you.
7. Submissions only in English and Hindi, please. While we understand the irony behind it (and the limiting nature of the call-out because of this), we are not in a position to consider manuscripts in other languages, for now. However, if you believe you have a compelling manuscript in other languages that we’d be later sorry to have missed out on, please do send it across. We will connect with you to understand the stories better.
8. There is no cap on the number of submissions by an individual.
Email for submission: pickleyolksubmissions@gmail.com
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2019.
Please note: we are currently closed to all other submissions.