📚NEW SERIES RELEASE – Part Two📖

On June 15, 2025August 22, 2025 By Mahvash K. M.In bookworm, childrensbooks, kidlit, Kidsbooks, mustread, newbook, Short story, writingLeave a comment

THE HEALING SERIES 👧🏻👦🏽❤️‍🩹

Dear all,

Books number 3 and 4 of The Healing Series are now on the shelves in bookstores across Sri Lanka. This series serves as a conversation starter with children aged 6 to 10, on the below incidences of trauma and stress in their young lives:

The loss of a parent
Parents’ separation
Being bullied
Becoming an older sibling to a new brother or sister

Every story in this collection gently holds the child’s hand and helps them navigate the confusing, painful and daunting times that they find themselves in.

In our beautiful but imperfect world, I hope that these books through the magic of story-telling in the safe haven of home and family, help to protect and nurture the mental and emotional wellbeing of our children 🌸.

IN PAKISTAN: The books will be available at Liberty Books, Paramount Books and the London Book Company by the end of September 2025.

VERSE | THE CONUNDRUM OF BOOK NO. 8

On December 26, 2024December 26, 2024 By Mahvash K. M.In bookworm, newbook, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

7 books down, and I was told
By well meaning friends of the heart
Start
Writing a novel.  Now that would be novel
For someone like me
A lover of the short story
Genre. Honour-ing the demigods
Of the craft
Like Munshi Premchand and Kurt Vonnegut 
Poe, Manto, Chughtai and a glut
Of others
Revered for the grace and form
They built into their pithy tomes
These brothers
And a sister to bring them all home

I also dabbled in poetry
A bit of whimsy, some contrariety
A ravaged spirit or blithe wings
Made my poems weep and sing
But the short story
And flash fiction 
Is where my heart lay 
For 6 of the books
Where my pen strayed
Where the typed word
Lay bare its humming core
To hold words of wisdom
Emotions galore
(Let me disclaim these to be mine
Not of the larger space and time)

7 books like an epoch of weeks
Must of change rustle and speak
But a no-vel, well-no … that’s not for me
Or my pen or my sensibility
William Faulkner that sage divine 
Said it best when he wrote his lines
I paraphrase, this verse to fit:
“A failed short story writer is a novelist
And a short story writer is a failed poet”.

REVIEWS | ONE FLEW OVER THE BULBUL’S NEST

On December 23, 2024January 15, 2025 By Mahvash K. M.In newbook, writingLeave a comment

The book is available via the below platforms:

AMAZON.COM: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBLVFRGR?dplnkId=512e7492-0294-4d2e-9f50-dd616e1dec29&nodl=1

AMAZON UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DBLVFRGR?dplnkId=8028d047-b8b3-4a3d-8b8f-09b8a1dc3ab9&nodl=1

KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/in/en/ebook/one-flew-over-the-bulbul-s-nest-and-other-stories

GOOGLE PLAY: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ETkgEQAAQBAJ

📚NEW CHILDREN’S BOOK! 📖

On December 7, 2024 By Mahvash K. M.In BookReading, bookworm, childrensbooks, newbook, writingLeave a comment

Dear friends and family,

Introducing my 4th and final book in the Curious Animals and Quirky Creatures series: MORE QUIRKY CREATURES, A SNOWMAN, A SUBMARINE AND A SNAIL.

The Curious Animals and Quirky Creatures series is both educational and entertaining as it takes children and their parents/ teachers on fun and informative little journeys through tropical jungles, deep blue seas, steep cliff sides, frozen landscapes and even their own backyards. These books also liberally emphasize the importance of being kind, brave and even silly sometimes.

From the greedy little marmoset monkey, to the submarine looking for friends, to the friendship between a bear and a girl, there are ten little stories in this collectible about delightful and funny creatures.
Every story tells of a little act of courage, humour and kindness as each of the little creatures saves the day in its own little way.

IN SRI LANKA: The book is available at Barefoot, Selyn, Expographics, Pendi, The Jam Fruit Tree and Sarasavi.

IN PAKISTAN: It should be in stores in another month. The other 3 books in the series are available at Liberty Books, Paramount Books and The London Book Company.

IN DUBAI: The series is available with my sister. (Please message me if you’d like to connect with her for the books).

750 books in the series sold to date! So, thank you to all who have bought, read and gifted them 💕
Here’s to #Rasingreaders 🌸

BOOK READING | RIOTOUS LOVE

On January 11, 2023 By Mahvash K. M.In BookReading, Fiction, newbook, Shortstory, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

Reading from my book of short stories, “THE GIRL WITH THE PAISLEY DUPATTA”. The book is available at Sarasavi, Barefoot, Jam fruit Tree, Expographics and Pendi in Sri Lanka and at Readings, Liberty Books and Paramount Books in Pakistan.

Many of the stories in this book are from outside the bell curve of our lives, embracing sensitive social elements that are spoken of either in subdued whispers or not at all: from the brutal vigilante justice dispensed in the name of religion in “The Gods of Fury”; to the harrowing custom of honour revenge in the “Sins of our Fathers”; to the patriarchal ruthlessness that so many young women are subjected to in the title story “The Girl with the Paisley Dupatta”.

Some of the other stories are of women and men negotiating life, love, friendship, careers and tradition in the sometimes tumultuous and many times limiting folds of their families and their communities: from the enterprising love affair of 61 year old Nighat in “Love in Rawalpindi”; to the shenanigans of a dancing queen in “Riotous Love”; to the complicated friendship between two middle aged unmarried society girls in “Days of Purgatory”.

UPDATE- New Book Release | SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS

On December 27, 2022August 29, 2023 By Mahvash K. M.In newbook, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments

My book SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS is now available at the following locations:

SRI LANKA:
- THE BAREFOOT BOOKSTORE
- THE JAM FRUIT TREE BOOKSTORE
- PENDI
- SARSASAVI BOOKSTORES
- EXPOGRAPHICS

PAKISTAN:
- LIBERTY BOOKS
- PARAMOUNT BOOKS
- READINGS

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The book is a collection of poems and essays, and as the name suggests, the contents of the 243 pages range from the sublime to the ridiculous; from soaring on the wings of ecstacy to struggling with overwhelming despair; from the capricious joys of matrimony to the dubious delights of singledom; from the profound ecstasy in a mug of steaming latte to the ardent disappointment in a less than perfectly brewed cup of tea; from the comedic to the somber and from the customary to the controversial, this collection of poems and features encompasses them all, and like a sore-throated bulbul (who also has some clear-voice days) I have sung them all for you.

POETRY READING | MAYA

On December 4, 2022 By Mahvash K. M.In newbook, poetry, SHIMMERING SCRAPS, writingLeave a comment

My book of poetry and essays SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS will be available in bookstores across Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the end of December 2022.

FRIENDS IN SL can get their copies TODAY from the Jam Fruit Tree bookstore on Galle road in Colombo via call/ WhatsApp to 072-7268078.

Shimmering Scraps is a collection of poems and essays, rumblings of the heart about the joys, the truths, the pain, the controversies, the funniness and the wonder that criss cross all our lives in one way or another.

The book is divided into five sections: Joy, Foot-in-the-mouth, Truth, Hope and Serenity. The Truth and Foot-in-the-Mouth categories are especially brazen and raw. As with most such uninhibited writing, the objective is to assail the sensibilities and even if just for a while, to look the truth right in its jaundiced eye. The other three sections are largely whimsical and uplifting very much like walking through a zen corridor, which I’m hoping, will also soften the sensory assault of the former two segments.

NEW BOOK RELEASE | SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS

On November 25, 2022January 15, 2023 By Mahvash K. M.In Foot in the Mouth, Joy, newbook, poetry, serenity, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing3 Comments

Dear friends and family,

It is with great excitement and pleasure that I introduce my second book for the grownups – my book of poetry and essays titled SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS. The book will be available across bookstores in Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the end of December 2022. Friends in SL can currently order it from the Jam Fruit Tree bookstore on Galle Road via call/WhatsApp to 072-7268078.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

This is a collection of poems and essays, humble opinions, rumblings of the heart about the joys, the truths, the pain, the controversies, the funniness and the wonder that criss cross all our lives in one way or another. I have compiled them here because too many times, we are witnesses to profound beauty, love, dreams, desolation, prejudice and injustice and yet, we forget.

The contents of these pages range from the sublime to the ridiculous; from soaring on the wings of ecstacy to struggling with overwhelming despair; from the capricious joys of matrimony to the dubious delights of singledom; from the profound ecstasy in a mug of steaming latte to the ardent disappointment in a less than perfectly brewed cup of tea; from the comedic to the somber and from the customary to the controversial, this collection of poems and features encompasses them all.

Scraps of Poetry and Madness is a phrase borrowed from that literary Wonder Woman, Virginia Woolfe. For in this collection too, there is a stream of raw and strident, passive and ruminative, joyous and grief-bound, mad and glad thoughts that run like a melody through the entirety of its spine; and like a sore-throated bulbul (who also has some good-voice days) I have sung them all for my readers.