This book is an offering—of prose, poetry, musical lyrics, and visual art—by the women of Meghalaya in Northeast India. One of the smallest states in the country, but also, one of the most beautiful, Meghalaya is blessed with landscapes that mesmerize and inspire song and story. In the not-so-distant past, though, it has also seen political turbulence and civil unrest, and many of the works here capture that quiet unease—in homes and kitchens, in market-places and public taxis. Yet this anthology is also a celebration. Of wisdom and joy, of queerness and sisterhood, of mothers and feminine bodies, of home and hearths. Of voices new and established. Brought together in one volume by Janice Pariat, a novelist and poet from these hills. Here, we sit together around a fire, and sing, and weep, and dance, and tell stories. We dream of where we came from, the hills, the mist, and dream of what else we are still yet to discover.

Contributors: Amanda Basaiamoit | Amanda Christie Tongper | Amrita Dutta | Angel Konthoujam | Anjum Hasan | Antara Roy Oruganti | Balaiamon Kharngapkynta | Bymonmiralda B Lato | Careen Joplin Langstieh | Cheryl Rynjah | Clarissa Giri | Daiaphi Lamare aka Reble | Daiarisa Rumnong | Daribha Lyndem | Esther Larisa David | Evangelene Nongkhlaw | Fileona Dkhar | Jobeth Ann Warjri | Karen L. Donoghue | Lahundashisha Kharshiing | Longnam Wanbiang Kharpuri | Maya Mawlong | Menty Jamir | Reeju Ray | Samanda Nora Pyngrope | Satarupa Paul | Saweini Laloo

JANICE PARIAT is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories and Seahorse: A Novel. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Young Writer Award and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction in 2013. Her novella The Nine Chambered-Heart, bestselling in India, was published in the UK and in ten other languages including Italian, Spanish, French, and German. Her most recent work Everything the Light Touches has been widely acclaimed. She lives between Shillong and New Delhi with a cat of many names.