The youngest author in this round-up is 8. She writes about kindness and magic, and she means it without a trace of self-consciousness. The oldest is 13. She reads books about displacement and belonging and writes hoping to do for other readers what reading did for her. Between them, they have built ocean societies, travelled across galaxies, described the exact moment a story builds itself whole, and kept coming back after finishing one book to write another. These are some of the young women who have published with us at Bukmuk Publishing.
Vedika Aggarwal is 12, from Delhi. For her solo book Shadow and the Elemental Masters, she built an ocean society where strength is everything, and then placed the weakest wave at the centre of the story. Most debut novels put the most powerful character up front. Vedika did the opposite, and the book is better for it. That is the kind of choice a writer makes when they have something specific to say.
Seeratt Sharrma is 8. She loves Owl Diaries, scary stories, and drawing unicorns. She brings the same determination she puts into her cartwheels to writing tales about kindness and magic. There is no distance in her writing, no trying to sound older. Straight feeling, straight page. That is harder to hold onto as a writer than it sounds.
Vanya Kapoor is 9. She loves writing, swimming, and singing. Here is how she describes her own process: once she starts a story, the ideas keep coming until it builds itself into something whole. We have heard established novelists say something close to that. Vanya said it at 9, and she said it better.
Aanya Taneja is 11, from Noida. Raised on Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, she writes with heart, urgency, and a sense of wonder. Many young writers can build a world. Fewer can make you worry about the people living in it. Aanya already does both.
Ridhvi Bansal is 11 and has contributed to both our anthologies, Hopscotch and Whispers of Many Worlds, making her one of our most published young authors. She writes time-bending adventures about people coming together to protect a shared world. Cooperation in the face of something larger than yourself is a mature theme to keep circling back to. She keeps circling back to it.
Zainab Hameed is 13. She reads books about displacement and belonging, books like The Boy at the Back of the Class, because reading is how she makes sense of things. She writes hoping to do the same for someone else. That is not a craft goal. That is a reason to write.
Mehreen Kaur is 13, from Noida. She moves between Kathak, freestyle and hip-hop, swimming, and a serious love of fantasy fiction. A writer who works across that many disciplines tends to bring something different to the page: a sense of rhythm, of when to hold and when to move. Her story in Whispers of Many Worlds does not go where you expect.
What the work shows
None of these writers are performing what they think writing ought to sound like. Vedika had an idea about power she needed to explore. Zainab writes because she needs to. Vanya follows the story until it finishes itself. We published their books, made sure the ISBNs were real, and stepped back. The worlds on these pages are entirely theirs.
If you have a young girl sitting on a story she is not sure is worth telling, we hope this is evidence that it is.
