AUTHOR'S BIO:
Radhika Sachdev is an independent journalist, who has held senior, editorial positions with leading news banners -Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Financial World, The Pioneer etc. She currently runs her own ad agency, Write Solutions (www.writesolutions.co) from Mumbai. My family comprises of a 78-year-old dad, and a 16-year-old daughter, two people, at two ends of the age spectrum.
1. Who and what inspired you to write?
I’ve been an editor and ghostwriter to many celebrity authors. My late mother, Asha Sachdev, never quite liked the description, “Ghostwriter,”for what I did for a living “When are you going to write your own book?” she would ask in exasperation, and my stock answer was, “When I feel it stirring in me.” Little did we both realise then, or we wouldn’t have wished for it, that it would take a liver transplant, and my close brush with death, for this book to take birth, and begin to grow inside me, with a life very much of its own.
2. What challenges did you face while writing and getting published?
The biggest challenge was writing from the discomfort of my hospital bed on the small screen of a Samsung Galaxy phone. Confined to my room for almost two months, post-surgery, where I was not allowed to interact with anyone, except my 24-hour nurse and attendant, I had very little to sustain my sanity with, except to write, and that’s what I did. It started as a daily blog series on LinkedIn, which got re-run on Times Of India blogsite, until I got this book offer.
The core of the book took shape during these two months of confinement in my super sanitized recuperating room, from where I not just wrote, but also negotiated with my clients and carried out my agency business.
3. How did you come to know about the literary agency THE BOOK BAKERS?
Through a friend and author, Oswald Pereira.
4. How did THE BOOK BAKERS help you and what would you like to say about them?
Suhail landed me this deal with Fingerprint, and I am extremely thankful to it.
5. How do you see literary success for yourself?
I am working on my second – Everyday Survival – from my favourite Launchpad, LinkedIn, where I am very active. Let’s see, where this journey takes me.
6. When can we expect your next book?
Hopefully, within six months, as its almost 3/4th done.
7. Any message or tips for aspiring authors?
Feel, feel deep inside you, and something might just pop out. Writing a book is very much like giving birth to a baby.
BOOK NAME: SECOND GO
PUBLISHER: FINGERPRINT PUBLICATION
BOOK SYNOPSIS/BLURB:
Penned in real time, from the hospital bed while battling for life, on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone's 4x2 inch keypad, the only device allowed to the patient in her super-sanitized recuperating room, this book necessarily follows a hybrid format of medico-psycho thriller, interspersed with SMS chats, transcripts of medical records, and other workings of an addled mind, overcome by sickness, yet determined to pull through.
It’s a first-hand account of a liver transplant recipient’s journey in India, chronicled from the patient’s perspective in vivid detail as a series of dramatic events unfold in her life, completing the cycle from sickness to health, despair to hope.
Finally, it also tells the story of a single mom and a single earner of the family, her strong bonding with her adoptive daughter and her family and friends’ support. The author hopes that this book gives courage and direction to a lot of liver transplant patients who die every year in India, waiting for a cadaveric organ donation. You can find more on the book here – www.radhikasachdev.in.
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