Q&A with award-winning author Shankari Chandran

Shankari shared her thoughts on creative writing, authenticity, world-building, and her process.

Question: Students in assessments need to reflect on what they’re writing, in the moment. What is your advice for their writing process?
Shankari: When you’re reflecting and self-evaluating, show the reader what you have consciously done and why. Showing your awareness of what you did (and didn’t) achieve is as valid as achieving itself.

Question: What do you do to bridge the gap between you as a writer and your audience?
Shankari: I don’t see my job as bridging gaps. I’m inviting you into a space I’ve created, to create clarity and evoke places and people in an authentic way. I focus less on just the techniques, and more on the why. I assume my reader is at least as clever as I am. I invite the reader to show them what I’m seeing. My best writing days are when I write what I see in my mind, and what my characters are feeling and seeing. They’re so alive to me; I’m feeling what they’re feeling. I’m not making it up. I’m inviting you into space that is clear to me. I think of writing and reading as a civic responsibility. I assume you are as morally motivated and intellectually capable as I am.

Question: Is it possible to write from a perspective with no personal connection?
Shankari: To avoid cultural appropriation, stay in your lane. Ask yourself: why are you doing it, who are you doing it for, and are there people better placed to tell this story but do not have the power or space? If so, then you should empower those people to tell that story. I would not tell a story from an Aboriginal voice. I would co-author with an Aboriginal writer.

Question: How do you create a literary world authentically?
Shankari: There’s nothing wrong with auto fiction, writing directly from experience. So many first novels are from writers’ original frame of reference and life stories, and they make excellent novels. Create a futuristic version of the world you live in now. 100 years from now. Anchor it in what you know and turn the volume up. And have fun with it!