Rupa Bose's Blog

The Speculative Literature Foundation has announced the winner of the 2022 A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature: Mimi Mondal. (You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/monidipa.mondal)

Here’s what they wrote:

This year’s AC Bose Grant winner is Mimi Mondal for her work “Twenty-Nine Days Before Remaking the World.”
Mimi Mondal (she/they) was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2020 for her novelette His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light (Tor.com/Realm.fm). Her debut Dungeons & Dragons adventure, named “In the Mists of Manivarsha” and inspired by Bengal from the 5th-6th century CE, is forthcoming in the book Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (Wizards of the Coast, June 2022). Her fiction can be found on Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Vol. 1 and elsewhere, and her nonfiction column “Extraordinary Alien” on Hindustan Times.

Mimi was born and raised in Kolkata, India, and currently lives in New York City, where she grows hydroponic flowers in the winter, reads (e)books on the grass at public parks in the summer, and takes late-night walks by the East River in all seasons.

“Twenty-Nine Days Before Remaking the World” was originally written in 2019 under the patronage of the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, which published the story in German translation by Anke Caroline Burger. The current version of the story is somewhat different from what it was three years ago, and may undergo a few other changes before it appears in Clarkesworld Magazine.

Many congratulations, Mimi!

THE A.C. BOSE GRANT

The A.C. Bose Grant will annually give $1000 to a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. It supports adult fiction, but work that is also accessible to older children and teens will be given preference in the jury process. The donors hope that this grant will help develop work that will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities.

​The grant is founded in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose. A.C. Bose, a lover of books, and especially science fiction and fantasy, by his children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose, in fond memory and to honor the legacy of the worlds he opened up for them.

It’s time for the fourth AC Bose Grant applications! This Grant is made in memory of my father, who loved reading, introduced us to speculative fiction at an early age, and fostered our love of books and of open minds and open imaginations.

THE GRANT

If you’re a South Asian/ South Asian diaspora writer, you can apply for this.

The SLF and DesiLit are pleased to announce a co-sponsored grant, founded in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose, known as the A. C. Bose Grant beginning in 2019.

The A.C. Bose Grant will annually give $1000 to a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. It supports adult fiction, but work that is also accessible to older children and teens will be given preference in the jury process. The donors hope that this grant will help develop work that will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities.

​The grant is founded in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose. A.C. Bose, a lover of books, and especially science fiction and fantasy, by his children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose, in fond memory and to honor the legacy of the worlds he opened up for them.​
More info can be found on the website: https://speculativeliterature.org/grants/slf-ac-bose-grant/

Applications are open from Jan 1-31, 2022. The award is decided by a jury, and SLF expects to announce the winners  announced March end.  To apply, you need to submit a 5000-word (or less) writing sample (which must be speculative fiction), and a 500-word cover letter. Go to the website link for more details.

WHAT’S ‘SPECULATIVE FICTION’?

According to their website:

“Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — and more. Any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element would fall under our aegis, and would potentially be work that we would be interested in supporting.”

Back in 2018, we started to set up an annual grant in my father’s memory. It was awarded for the first time in 2019 to Senaa Ahmed. That post is HERE.

Normally, the winner would be announced on 26th May, Dad’s birth anniversary. This year, there was Covid, so there was disruption and delay. But the winner has been selected! And it’s Asha Thanki. The story that won her the grant, “Somewhere in Bombay, a Fog Descends” was published in the Arkansas International magazine, Spring 2020.

This is from the website of the Speculative Literature Foundation:

‘Thanki’s winning piece is titled “Somewhere in Bombay, a Fog Descends.” Thanki is a fiction writer and essayist living in Minneapolis, where she is completing an MFA at the University of Minnesota. She is the winner of the 2019 Arkansas International’s Emerging Writers Prize and a finalist for Redivider’s 2020 Beacon Street Prize. Her work has appeared in Platypus Press’ wildness, The Common, Catapult, Cosmonauts Avenue, Hyphen, and more; more information can be found at ashathanki.com.’

THE A.C. BOSE GRANT

Here are the details of the grant. The application period is January 1 to March 31, so if you’re interested in the 2021 award, there’s lots of time.

‘The A.C. Bose Grant, established in 2019, is an annual grant given to a South Asian/South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. It supports adult fiction, but work that is also accessible to older children and teens will be given preference; the donors hope this will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities. The grant is named in honor of Ashim Chandra Bose, a lover of books and especially of science fiction and fantasy, and was founded by his children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose.‘

Last year, we were thinking about some kind of award to commemorate my father. He was a wonderful person – an intellect, soft-spoken, broad-ranging in his thinking and values. One of the things he did for us, his children, was to get us interested in reading, and it was he who introduced us to Science Fiction and Fantasy (now broadly known as Speculative Fiction). It’s remained our favorite genre, with its ability to generate new worlds of ideas.

So when the opportunity popped up to fund a grant to writers in and from South Asia who are working in this genre, we took it. The Speculative Literature Foundation accepts applications, assembles a jury, picks the winner, and makes the award. It’s called  The SLF $1000 A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature

The SLF and DesiLit are pleased to announce a new co-sponsored grant, founded in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose, known as the A. C. Bose Grant beginning in 2019.

The A.C. Bose Grant will annually give $1000 to a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction. It supports adult fiction, but work that is also accessible to older children and teens will be given preference in the jury process. The donors hope that this grant will help develop work that will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities.

​The grant is founded in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose. A.C. Bose, a lover of books, and especially science fiction and fantasy, by his children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose, in fond memory and to honor the legacy of the worlds he opened up for them.​

The first A.C. Bose award was made on May 26th (Dad’s birth anniversary) to Senaa Ahmad. It was announced at Wiscon, a major Speculative Fiction Convention.

The story that won Senaa Ahmad the award is The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls – a grim fantasy about girls who have been weaponized as radioactive bombs. It was first published in Strange Horizons and you can read it here: The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls.

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