We recently connected with Vinita Agrawal and have shared our conversation below.

Vinita, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I wanted to be a writer. The evidence was everywhere: in the journal I had been writing in since teenage, the half-finished short story on my laptop, the blog idea I’d talked about for years but never started. I felt a disconnect, a sense that the part of me that was most me—the observer, the wordsmith, the storyteller—would being systematically silenced by the daily grind.
The emotion was a cocktail: 75% restlessness, 20% doubt, and a mere 5% flicker of hope that I tried desperately to protect from the downpour of “be realistic.”
It didn’t start with a lightning bolt. It started with a low, persistent hum of frustration.
The Catalyst, the Moment of Clarity wasn’t one moment, but a series of them, like kindling catching fire. I wasn’t just offering “words.” I was offering clarity, connection, and conversion. I was building a bridge between my mission and my audience. Then one day a bunch of my poems got published in a national magazine called Femina. The eminent Indian poet, Kamla Das, whom I greatly admired, was editing their poetry page at that time. That did it for me. I knew then that there was nothing I wanted to do except write.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Once I decided that I wanted to be a writer, I started to sift through the opportunities available to me. It was important for me to balance my time well between the demands of motherhood and setting aside time for writing. Initially, I took up a part-time job at an Ad agency. They made Ads for development programs in the country. I worked there for two years. After that I began to take up freelance assignments on research-based writing projects. These assignments were not exactly creative in nature but they kept me going.
In 2010, my son, who was ready for college, went to USA for studies. I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands. Inevitably, I found myself writing fiercely. In 2013, my debut poetry collection – Words Not Spoken – was published. Since then, I’ve published five more volumes of poetry. I’ve attended several literary festivals including the Filey Book Fair in Mexico. I’ve hosted interviews with writers on online panels, I’ve been interviewed on the Literary Lounge Podcast.
I’ve also edited a few anthologies – two of them on climate change, one on Nissim Ezekiel’s daughter’s memoir and another on a compilation of poetry from the northern most state of India, Kashmir.

I’ve picked up a few awards over the years. I was awarded the Gayatri GaMarsh award for Literary Excellence, USA, the Tagore Literary Prize in 2018 – I had lovely interactions with the organisers of this prize and they put me on the Advisory Board for subsequent years, most recently, I was awarded the Jayanta Mahapatra Award for National prize in Literature.
All these recognitions have been hugely validating for my writing. I’ve felt warmly accepted by the writing community in my country. More importantly, it’s added a wonderful impetus to my writing. After more than two decades of creative writing, I don’t feel jaded. Rather I am brimming with fresh enthusiasm and inspiration.
In 2014, I launched my website www.vinitawords.com
I love all the travelling opportunities my writing affords. It’s great to meet new people, young literary enthusiasts and senior writers through literary festivals and events.

I also co-edit the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English. It’s an intensive exercise in editing and compiling a year’s worth of poetry but the reward is that one is archiving quality Indian poetry for posterity.

This year saw me bring out a children’s book. I’ve been wanting to write a children’s book for sometime now. I was delighted to find a wonderful publisher for my first children’s collection of stories. It’s really important to inculcate the habit of reading in children from a young age. Reading broadens the mental horizons of kids. I’m glad to have contributed a book to the world of children’s literature. One of many, I hope.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

It’s the profound satisfaction of taking something intangible—a fleeting feeling, a complex emotion, a half-remembered dream, or a quiet observation about the world—and translating it into something tangible that can be shared.
It’s that moment when a knot of abstract thought or emotion in my chest finally finds its perfect form in a sequence of words, a combination of verbal colours, or a turn of phrase. It’s the “aha” moment of solving the puzzle of how to make the inside, outside. The reward isn’t just in the final product, but in the very act of bridging that gap between the internal and external world. It feels like making the invisible, visible,
Also, when you write about your deepest feelings, or moments, you in fact, make them immortal. That’s quite special.
Writing, like any other art, is a gift. One should cherish it, nurture it and hone one’s craft every single day.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My father had suffered a stroke. He was in coma for 27 days. He passed away on the 27th day. I had already lost my mother to cancer eight years earlier. Being the only child, I felt as if the wall behind my back had collapsed. I experienced grief so intense that all my senses were on hold. I thought I’d never emerge from it. I was in despair. I was also depressed. I encountered a bunch of medical crises myself. Even writing didn’t me solace. I was functioning as a body but deep inside I had become a zombie.
Then slowly I began to process my grief. I did so by writing about it. I would think about my parents and imagine what could make them proud. The answer was always that they would like to see me strong and resilient. They would want me to pick up the threads of my life and get my act together. They would want me to move past my pain and do wonderful things in life.
That gave me the inspiration to keep going. It prodded me towards normalcy. I learned to tackle the huge vacuum that had arrived in my life. Bit by bit, I learned to shut the doors of the past and concentrate on the future. In the end, that is the only option one has.

I also started birding. I would and still do, travel to the lower Himalayas and take photos of the beautiful birds that inhabit that area. I invested in some good quality equipment, mostly a camera with powerful telephoto lenses. Birding is an extremely healing and calming hobby. For me it combines my love for nature and photographing birds. It brings me immense joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vinitawords.com
• Instagram: vinitaagrawal18
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vinita.agrawal.127?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: Vinita Agrawal
• Twitter: @vinita65
• Youtube: vinitaagrawal18