Tejaswinee Roychowdhury@TejaswineeRC

Nov 1

Koral Dasgupta@KoralDasgupta

Nov 1

Will start reading these two now, one after the other. One edited by @ankit_raj01 and another by @TejaswineeRC
Both beautifully produced anthologies.
And I absolutely, absolutely love the covers.

Mythic Picnic

@MythicPicnic

Oct 31

Nathan Pettigrew@NathanBorn2010

Oct 26

New Picnic Call! Theme is “Creative Nonfiction vs. Straight Nonfiction.”
The Picnic pays $25 USD for 350 words, including title and bio. Deadline is 11/8. Feel free to send your true stories to: mrpettigrew@yahoo.com

Mythic Picnic

@MythicPicnic

Oct 27

Nathan Pettigrew@NathanBorn2010

Oct 26

New Picnic Call! Theme is “Creative Nonfiction vs. Straight Nonfiction.”
The Picnic pays $25 USD for 350 words, including title and bio. Deadline is 11/8. Feel free to send your true stories to: mrpettigrew@yahoo.com

Debmalya Bandyopadhyay@halfmoonwhiskey

Oct 25

Univ of Hyderabad

@HydUniv

Oct 25

🏆 Debmalya Bandyopadhyay wins Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 🏆

We are delighted to announce that Debmalya Bandyopadhyay, a writer and mathematician, is the winner of the 18th Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize! 🎉

Currently based in Melbourne, Australia, he was chosen from among ry consisting of poet Priya Sarukkai Chabria and two faculty members from the Department of English at the University of Hyderabad.

📜 Shortlist
Srijita Talukdar and Nikita Parik have made it to this year's shortlist.

✍️ About the Winner
Debmalya graduated from the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program in 2025 and is the winner of the Verve Poetry Competition, apart from being a runner-up at the UK Poetry Coaches Slam and a finalist at a host of poetry prizes, including the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, Grouse Grind Lit Prize, Osmosis Poetry Prize, Sweet Literary's Poetry Prize, and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize.

His poems have appeared in Blackbird, Wildness, Southern Humanities Review, Chestnut Review, South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. Debmalya's poems have been anthologised in The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, the Propel Anthology, and the Vervacious Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.

He has been nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, the Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. He was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition in 2026. He edits poetry at The Bombay Literary Magazine and is often in parks, confabulating with local birds. 🐦

📖 About the Prize
Recognised as a significant award for creative writing in India, the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize was instituted by the Hyderabad-based Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust to recognize excellence in poetry written in English by poets in the age group of 20-40 years. The Prize is jointly administered by the Department of English, University of Hyderabad.

🌟 Past Winners
The inaugural prize was awarded in 2009 to Aditi Machado and, subsequently, to Hemant Mohapatra (2010), Aditi Rao (2011), Tushar Jain (2012), Mihir Vatsa (2013), Ranjani Murali (2014), Aishwarya Iyer (2015), Goirick Brahmachari (2016), Debarshi Mitra (2017), Poorna Swami (2018), Prashant Parvataneni (2019), Satya Dash (2020), Pervin Saket (2021), Syam Sudhakar (2022), Nikita Deshpande (2023), Ajay Kumar (2024), and Mubashira Patel (2025).

👥 Distinguished Jury
Eminent poets like Jeet Thayil, Sudeep Sen, Keki Daruwalla, Arundhathi Subramanian, Manohar Shetty, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote, E.V. Ramakrishnan, Gieve Patel, Mamang Dai, Vinay Dharwadker, Mani Rao, Sridala Swami, Menka Shivdasani, and Sharmista Mohanty have been associated with the prize as jury members.

🏅 The Award
This 18th Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize, consisting of a citation and cash prize of Rs. 15,000, will be presented to the winner at the Hyderabad Literary Festival in January 2027.

👏 Heartiest congratulations to Debmalya and to the shortlisted poets, Srijita Talukdar and Nikita Parik!

#SrinivasRayaprolPoetryPrize #UniversityOfHyderabad #UoH #DepartmentOfEnglish #Poetry #IndianPoetryInEnglish #HyderabadLiteraryFestival