PVPF 2024

Arpita Das- Board member of PublisHer, Founder of Yoda Press

on Mar 03, 2022

Arpita Das is the Founder-Publisher of Yoda Press, an independent academic publisher in India. She is an alumna of St. Stephens College, University of Delhi, and School of African and Oriental Studies, London. Arpita leads the Yoda Press Workshops Series for Authors and Editors and is a Member of the Executive Board of PublisHer (female publishing industry).

She has also taught as Visiting Faculty on the Creative Writing Programme at New Delhi’s Ashoka University and as Adjunct Faculty at the School of Business and the School of Creative Expression at Ambedkar University.

She frequently writes on book culture, publishing, popular culture, gender, and bibliotherapy for various outlets. Earlier this year, she became the Series Editor of the South Asia Series at Melbourne University Press.

Frontlist: Arpita Das has been popularly known as an ally of sexuality, popular Indian culture, and the LGBTQA+ community. Is this the reason that Yoda Press started with the same vision?

Arpita: The LGBTQ+ list was a vital part of our vision right from the beginning. Our interest to develop that list also communicated our commitment to publishing books that were an accurate representation of our contemporary South Asian reality, albeit a non-mainstream one. Articulate LGBTQ+ voices were already there when we were setting up shop, but they were hard to be seen in books, and we wanted to change that.

Frontlist: How is it important to expose queer literature to spread awareness concerning LGBTQA+ emotions?

Arpita: Now, in the aftermath of the Indian LGBTQ+ movement’s greatest triumph, in accomplishing the paradigm shift in the country’s law, with the Supreme Court decriminalising homosexuality in 2018, I feel a huge step has been taken. It was a moment of pride for us that five Yoda Press titles were cited in that landmark judgement. It is important for us that all books published by Yoda Press are allies of the movement, and no book we publish reflects a heteronormative perspective because such a reality does not exist.

Frontlist: You’ve been associated with PublisHer as a Board Member. How has been your working relationship with other women members from the publishing community, as everyone comes from different cultural backgrounds with different perspectives?

Arpita: I am thrilled about being part of the PublisHer Board. It has been a deep pleasure to work alongside a dynamic and brilliant group of bookwomen from across the world, as well as to be a part of PublisHer’s projects such as the one on Mentoring as well as developing a Diversity Toolkit for the industry across the world. Transborder networks between bookwomen are vital, to my mind, because one can work with each other without the competitive baggage of one’s local milieu and give serious feedback to each other about solutions and strategies.

Frontlist: Two years ago, Yoda Press collaborated with Simon & Schuster India. How’s this collaboration turned out for encouraging the alliance within the publishing industry?

Arpita: Both our joint imprints, the one we started with Sage India for academic titles in 2015 and the one with S&S, is progressing well. For the niche/small to thrive, collaborations with large houses are important, and that is my understanding of how indie, small presses can continue to exist and do important work in the present ecosystem.

Frontlist: It has been 14 years since the inception of Yoda Press. How many new initiatives your organization has brought up thus far to encourage women authors?

Arpita: It has now been 18 years, as a matter of fact. We started in 2004. Both our instinct AND vision has always compelled us at Yoda Press to look for writings by women, authors who identify as LGBTQ+, and DBA authors. To be committed to Diversity and Inclusion is the cornerstone of our publishing list and out there for all to see and judge.

Frontlist: Yoda Press, as well as the PublisHer Team, consists of mostly strong female members. Does this represent solidarity among the women community? Also, share your thoughts in this context.

Arpita: Well, PublisHer is an organisation for bookwomen across the world. So, obviously it is peopled by women. As far as Yoda Press is concerned, we believe that our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion in our publishing list would be a sham if we did not first have a diverse team at work. So once again, the team has always been made up of those who identify as women and LGBTQ+ folks, i.e., it has always been gender-diverse.

Frontlist: You’ve been leading Yoda Press workshops. How do these kinds of workshops add value to the publishing industry?

Arpita: The workshops started slowly and experimentally in our office space in 2018, then gathered speed in their online version after the first COVID lockdown happened in early 2020. The overwhelming response to the workshops has meant that we have changed the format to a longer, more intensive, immersive version to be able to increase the number of seats; we are also now collaborating with many of our authors to run more specialised writing workshops. What we have realised is that there is a massive gap in terms of links between authors and the publishing industry; in the space of writing-mentoring and mentoring of young publishing professionals, and our workshops have been received with such love and excitement because they are working hard to fill this gap somewhat.

Frontlist: On the occasion of International Women’s Day, what advice would you like to give to your fellows?

Arpita: To women in my industry, I would say, please stand in genuine solidarity with those who do not have power here. That goes out, particularly to more senior and privileged women in the industry.