A year ago we at Lahore Education & Research Network – LEARN started to work on #rethinkingwriting as an industry with Olomopolo Media in order to draw attention to the scope and potential of investing in this craft and what it can do for Pakistan in terms of taking its stories out there to the world.

One year on, we can truly say that the authors in this country and those supporting them and the publishers and other literary folks have all contributed towards realization of this very thought and we have seen a lot of interesting developments taking shape in Pakistan as regards writing; be it in shape of literary festivals and awards such as the zeenat haroon award or the work of many of our authors being published in the region and abroad or be it Awais Khan’s (author of ‘In the Company of Strangers and Founder of The Writing Institute) phenomenal success with bridging the gap between Pakistani authors and foreign literary agents and publishers, the Pakistani authors have come a long long way.

Also Naima Rashid deserves a special mention for resurrecting Parvin Shakir’s poetry and putting it out there on the world map through her exceptional work in translating the same, which is also an intensely creative process full of immense responsibility shows that there is huge potential and high hopes from our people.

It is now up to the government and the industry to rethink writing and create an enabling environment for access to better printing material, more international outreach and liaison with agents and relevant bodies and other infrastructural support for the production of world class books in Pakistan and their distribution so that our budding publishers like Folio Books and Mongrel Books among others can continue to support and publish local work for a global audience.