Guest Blog
Here, we share our stories sent in by our readers/storytellers/guests.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
If you would like to submit your stories to How to Tell a Great Story, here are some guidelines.
- The guest post must be related to storytelling, reading, writing and publishing.
- Ideally, you haven’t published your story has not anywhere else. However, if you have, and would like it to publish it here, please get permission from the original publisher to republish it here. (I will not write to those publishers for permission.)
- If your post is being published here for the first time, you cannot publish it elsewhere for three months. Thereafter, you can republish it elsewhere, as long as there’s a sentence beneath the title of your post stating that it was first published on this site together with an appropriate link.
- You may include two links in the byline, which will be displayed at the bottom of the post.
- If your post includes an image, please send one that is appropriate and relevant. Again, please send a photo that you have permission to publish.
- Once your story is published here, please promote it on your own blog and social media accounts.
- Please stick to a word count of 1,000 words. And please do not use fancy font, colours or formatting.
- Send the post to me by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please include the post in the body of the email or as a .doc or docx file attachment.
- It may take me up to a week to respond to your email. So please be patient. If you don’t hear from me for more than a week, please send a reminder.
- I’ll make exceptions to some of these guidelines depending on the circumstances.
- If you’d like to go ahead and invest in a blog post for a token price of USD20.00, then please click on the button below:
I am looking forward to publishing your stories. Best wishes.
Aneeta
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 03:44
‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
After a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19 free world’ is still some distance away as we continue our march there, slowly but surely. The year 2020 was all about suffering, surviving and sustaining. More importantly, it was all about ‘learning’, from the crisis we were forced into, the changes we had to adapt to and the social,…
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Guest Blog
Thursday, 19 November 2020 23:04
You Are The Evidence by Vaidya C. D. Siby
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
It was recently reported that the Indian Medical Association called on the health minister, himself a doctor (Dr. Harsh Vardhan), to provide evidence that Ayurveda and yoga are effective in treating the coronavirus.1 This has been the source of ongoing, and sometimes contentious, discourse. The story of Asha (not her real name) illustrates this point. A year ago, Asha pleaded with her Ayurveda practitioner, “Please listen to me. Everyone is just passing me from one specialist to the next.” When she was 35 years old, after several years of investigations, Asha was finally diagnosed by the endocrinologist as being hypothyroid.…
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Guest Blog
Friday, 02 October 2020 21:31
Say Their Name by Dr. Swagata Sinha Roy and Aneeta Sundararaj
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
‘Bengali’ is not a pejorative term, but endows the recipient with a sense of self-worth and respect rooted in glory. “Say their name. Start there,” said President Dalton, a character in the popular American television series, Madam Secretary. In this fictitious story, the president encouraged the leader of Myanmar to recognise a faction of its citizens, the Rohingya. In various parts of the episode which aired in 2018, the terms Rohingya and Bengali seemed to be interchangeable. Dismissing this misnomer as artistes exercising their creative licence, we thought nothing more of this. It all came back to us recently when…
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Is looking after a dog one dog too many? How about 40? There are some rules and habits you can stick to, though, to make it all work. Aneeta, who manages this website, has often remarked, “I can’t think of taking another dog yet. It’s so much responsibility. And I only had one. You have 40. Die!” One dog? That’s nothing. Over the years, as our dog population increased, there are a few rules and habits that I’ve stuck to. I compiled them several years ago and I’d like to share them here by re-telling a story I wrote. Please…
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Buddha Statue - Cambodia (2018)[/caption] I recently watched a movie on Netflix about the life of Gautama Buddha and it had a profound effect on me. I was eager to learn about the life of this prince born into privilege who gave up everything and everyone to search for the ultimate truth. When he was born, Gautama Buddha was given the name Prince Siddhartha. During the celebrations to celebrate the prince’s birth, a sage came forward. He prophesied that Prince Siddhartha would become the greatest sage in history and would lead humanity to the path of salvation. His father, King…
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I want you to know that you are the best thing to ever happen to me. I have loved many of your kind my whole life, but you are something special. For you, I feel my heart grow bigger and beat louder. I love you with a love that I have never experienced before and I believe it is because you are different from anything that has ever entered my life. Even when I am not perfect you still look at me like I am. You are, without a doubt, the beat of my heart. Dear ChelseaBoo, Do you remember…
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Echo, as we came to name our sweet Dalmation, was born with his disability. Despite being deaf in both ears from birth, he is the calmest and happiest puppy I have ever met. He doesn’t know any differently and perhaps thinks that silence is just life. He will never know or hear his name being called or hear other dogs bark at him or be afraid of the sound of thunder. Echo [Watch a YouTube video of Echo here: https://youtu.be/rzQ-XQkPO7A ] Did you know that 80 per cent of Dalmatians are born either deaf on one side or both? Echo,…
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Ramli Ibrahim, the legendary odissi dancer, narrates the journey that women choreographers in odissi have taken and the central role that Sutra Foundation has in bringing them to the fore. [This story is published here with the author's permission.] In April 2011, Sutra Foundation staged Odissi Stirred at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre. The newspapers reported that, ‘true to the art, the choreographer is inspired by the Odissi tradition and reveals its rural and folk charm, incorporating elements of its originality while transcending into modernity as the moves are mesmerisingly surreal and captivating.’ The production included a 20-minute composition…
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My first memory of LIGHT I do not recall, But my ‘daak naam’ seemed to have a luminous circle around it. I guess it pays to choose to come into the world on days like Diwali. When I realized that I am actually called LIGHT I kind of laughed out loud … yeah right! Light on my feet I am certainly not. And light as a … feather(?) …no, don’t even go there. At three, I was fascinated by the streetlight Outside my Mashi’s house in Kuala Pillah. The darwan (as my Mesho called him), much to the chagrin Of…
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Seema and Duchess Even at four months of age, anyone could see that she was no ordinary dog, IF they looked beyond everything that WAS ordinary about her and looked into her eyes. She had already seen too much for a puppy that young. It was like her heart was already broken, but until her body broke, too, she would still need to feed it. But her eyes were there for everyone to look into - a peculiar mix of sadness tinged with a tiny sliver of the gigantic love she was so capable of giving and yearning to receive.…
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More...
By Sreelata Menon [This story first appeared on firstwriter.com and is reprinted here with permission from the author.] Are your articles being subjected to unnecessary editorial changes? Are you beginning to think your writing’s at fault? Have you felt like committing hara-kiri? Giving it all up? Packing it all in? Don’t! Hang on! It’s not what you think! Read on and discover why editors are the way they are, what could possibly make them the way they are and feel better… A promising theory I have a theory! It’s a theory no self-righteous editor is going to accept. But it’s…
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David Ananda (Published with Permission) It's been just over two years since Aneeta and I first met. I was the subject of her article 'All Paws For A Support System', published in New Straits Times in March 2017. She gave me the privilege of sharing with her the story of 'Pawse For A Cause', a project I founded that brings the entertainment industry together to raise resources for needy animal shelters. Since then, I have also founded the 'ALIVE' Project with my partner David Ananda. This is an animal initiative that focuses on strategic solutions for the animal community with…
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Monday, 24 September 2018 17:10
Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
By Jason Kincaid [This story first appeared on https://medium.com/descript and is reprinted here with permission from the author.] If you’re a writer — of books, essays, scripts, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: the blank screen, a looming deadline, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier. If you know that rumble all too well: this post is for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination. Here’s the core idea: thinking out…
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Latest Posts
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Sakshi
Written by Aneeta SundararajI have been in a state of ‘emotional unwell-being’ for seven years. There, I’ve said it. Why? Well, after my father died, I believed that if I reached out with love to ‘good friends’, counsellors, suitors, and relatives, there could be pockets of joy to offset my grief and loneliness,…
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The Creative Industry Needs to Look at Things Differently Post Budget 2022
Written by Aneeta SundararajOn 29 October 2021, the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022 in the Malaysian parliament. RM50 million has been allocated for the arts and culture industry. This comes after a year and a half after the entire industry came to an absolute standstill. With…
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‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
Written by Aneeta SundararajAfter a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19…
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Chaos of Whole Books
Written by Aneeta SundararajIs it possible to read several books at once? Aneeta Sundararaj finds out.When I was a child, my cousin used to boast that he could read four storybooks at a time. As an adult, when he invested in an e-Reader, he continued to boast that he could…
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Writing for You? Or for Me?
Written by Aneeta SundararajWriting for You? Or for Me? ‘You must always write with your reader in mind.’ This was one of the first pieces of advice that I received when I began my writing career. Honestly, I found this extremely hard to do because more often than not, I couldn’t picture my…