The episode opens with Karthik talking about what creativity means to him. He shares his earliest memory of being creative and how he started out with writing. Karthik talks about his stint in business development and his shift to education, where he taught English and History! We chat about his experience as a teacher and his move to publishing. Karthik sheds light on the editorial process of a book and we chat about different aspects of an editorial job. We then talk about how he chose to pursue writing more seriously and his debut book. Karthik also shares about some books he’s worked on and stories that he’s loved as a reader. The episode ends with an excerpt from Karthik’s book read by him.

Karthik Venkatesh grew up in Bangalore, speaking Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, English, Dakhani and Hindi. He tried to learn French but failed. He did learn Punjabi though. Once an MBA, he later studied education and taught English and History in a school. He is now Executive Editor at Penguin Random House India and has written two books for children 10 Indian Languages And How They Came To Be, and 10 Makers Of The Indian Constitution (January 2025). You can find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthik-venkatesh-b565251/

Sangeetha Menon a.k.a. The Moody Marshmallow is a writer, editor and podcaster. She currently handles the rights portfolio at Tulika Publishers, where she finds new avenues for stories to travel. She has worked with organisations like Bound, Karadi Tales, and Carve Magazine to name a few. You can find her on Instagram: @marshmallow.musings and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menonsangeetha/

Mentions: Tintin by Herge, The Winning Way, Harsha Bhogle, Anita Bhogle, Boundary Lab, Nandan Kamath, the Hindu, Duckbill, Sayoni Basu, Westland, Ian Rankin, Agatha Christie, Shetland, Harlen Coben, Amitav Ghosh, AK Ramanujan, Ram Guha, Pundits From Pakistan, Rahul Bhattacharya, P Sainath, The Last Heroes, Tulika Publishers, Unknown Heroes Of India’s Freedom Struggle, Alice Munro, R K Narayan, Jahnavi Barua, The Smart And The Dumb, Vishal Vasanthkumar,

Social Media:

Instagram - @theclosetwriterchronicles

Twitter - @TheMoodyMarsh

Email - theclosetwriterchronicles@gmail.com

Music:

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Karthik Venkatesh: Inside An Editor's Mind