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Using Twitter/ Nieman Storyboard
For a writer, being successful on Twitter, accumulating followers, is a particular skill that has more to do with showmanship than writing. Provocative, controversial and funny content attracts followers. Can you do that? Writing click-bait type tweets that offer headline-like copy helps. Can you do that? Keeping a steady cadence of content is key. You have to keep putting stuff out there. Some folks tweet four times a day. Can you do that? It involves being comfortable with what skeptics call “oversharing,” and stopping the censor in your head that says “nobody cares about your every inane thought.” Can you stop that censor? Read my take on how journalists use Twitter.
About Rajat Parr/Sommelier India
The unbridled pleasure of orange wine If you ask wine writers or sommeliers to pick a wine that goes well with Indian food, you get [...]
Emojis/Hindustan Times
This was a fun piece to write. Inspired by a man I know who uses emojis in a cute, funny way. The one covering the face with the hand for instance. There are all these facial exercises going around. Maybe we just imitate emojis? Or better yet, meet in person and actually emote.
Jonathan Franzen interview
In which I interview Jonathan Franzen about his birding journey. Click here to listen to the interview for the Bird Podcast Read more about [...]
Moral policing/Hindustan Times.
At the end of the day, it is a bad-news story, but like much in this contradictory country of ours, it is also a good-news story. The only way that this particular moral policing story is different from the countless others that are sprouting up all over India is that it is a social media phenomenon
Indian fermented pickles
How many times have you shelled out Rs. 300 for a bottle of kombucha and wondered why there was no Indian equivalent? Where were all the gut-friendly, probiotic fermented drinks (and foods) in Indian cuisine? Of course, there are. As with anything in India, every state has its own variations. In this piece, I write about Rajasthani Kanji and Karnataka's Karindi.
Nine features I wrote for Condenast Traveler (US edition) a while back
Interviews with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Shoba Narayan is an award-winning Indian author, journalist, and freelance travel writer based in India. She specialises in luxury travel, immersive journeys, and Indian culture with a focus on food, wine, culture, cities, and identity. With over two decades of experience, she has contributed travel features to Condé Nast Traveler (US edition), Travel & Leisure, DestinAsian, Mint Lounge, The National (Abu Dhabi), Taj Magazine, and Hindustan Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph UK, The Guardian UK, and Robb Report among others. Her awards include the James Beard food-writing award and a Pulitzer Travel Fellowship. Her travel writing spans India, Southeast Asia, Japan, China, the Maldives, Bhutan, Costa Rica, and beyond — always with a focus on the sensory, the cultural, and the deeply human. Based in Bangalore, India, Shoba is a leading voice on South Asian travel, reviewing luxury hotels in India and abroad, and writing immersive features on traditional Indian crafts, and contemporary Indian culture. As a freelance travel writer and memoirist, she writes evocative, deeply researched features on everything from birding in Costa Rica to spiritual tourism in Bhutan.
For editors: Shoba Narayan is an Indian travel writer and food writer, who contributes to assignments on travel, food, culture, and Indian cities. She has reported from across the world and writes narrative-driven features with a strong sense of place.
Key Expertise: India travel writer, freelance travel writer India, South Asia travel journalist, luxury travel India writer, food and travel writer India, Indian food writer, Bangalore travel writer, South India travel writing, cultural travel writer, narrative travel journalist, travel features India, heritage travel India, slow travel India, sustainability travel writer, hotel and destination features India, travel essays South Asia.