About Us
A literary association founded for women and girls interested in Malayalam and English literatureAksharasthree: The Literary Woman
Aksharasthree: The Literary Woman started functioning informally at Kalathipady, Kottayam, Kerala on 20th August 2015. Our Association is now registered under the Charitable Society Act. When we look back at the activities and programmes of this association for women and girls interested in Malayalam and English literature, we can acknowledge with satisfaction that the milestones we passed by in the course of these last five years were remarkable. We are proud to testify that our members have experienced indescribable moments of happiness during this span, short however it be. Now we have included Hindi also in this association.
A one-liner intimation in the Malayala Manorama Daily on 13th August, 2015 and the consequent monthly meetings were the fulfillment of my long-cherished dream of sharing the opinions and critical views of the books we read and the films we see. Standing at the threshold of a new phase for the association, we are happy that we have as members women from different parts of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Middle East, U.K. and USA. We have members from various walks of life like home-makers, school teachers, doctors, professors, college students and others. We launched a Chapter for the association based at St.Joseph’s College for Women in Alappuzha on 5th October, 2018. On 30th March, 2019 another Chapter started functioning in Vaikom. A third Chapter at Thiruvananthapuram , the Capital City of Kerala was inaugurated on 31st August by the eminent Poet Rose Mary. She is also our honorary member. A Chapter in the Middle East was hoped to be open in early 2020, though it did not take place because of the pandemic, Covid—19. However, we meet every day in Whatsapp groups and meet every month in video meeting. One of our objectives is to expand our work to all the districts in Kerala, and abroad.
Initially, monthly meetings were held at the residence of Prof.Prasannakumari T.G., the then Vice-President of the Association. By a stroke of fortune, we got permission to conduct our meetings at D.C.Books(Leading Publishers) Heritage(Museum) Hall, Kottayam. We presented our works and the works of eminent writers whenever we assembled there. But most often, we organized public functions in connection with Book releases, Book Fairs, Seminars, and Workshops etc. We have already conducted three programmes each at CMS.College, BCM College and Baselius College, Kottayam; one programme at B.K.College, Amalagiri and a number of programmes at St.Joseph’s College, Alappuzha. We have conducted contests for women and college students in Short Story, Novel and Poetry and organized workshops in Novel, Drama and Script Writing for movie. We are now enthusiastically planning to produce short films also.
Every day our Whatsapp Group is active. We indulge in story writing, poem writing etc. in this group. Book publishing is a hallmark of the association. We have so far published 34 books, Malayalam and English of our members. We undertook this field of publishing to fulfill the long-cherished dreams of our members. We do translation work also.
We partook in many individual and group programmes at AIR. We went on picnics also to rejuvenate ourselves and strengthen our team spirit.
We have launched a Story-telling session in schools by inaugurating a session for five schools under Manarcadu Panchayath in Kottayam and distributing books and certificates to the students as a token of our appreciation. We have decided to expand this programme to other schools also. Three Story-telling sessions were successfully conducted in various schools in Thiruvananthapuram under the leadership of our Thiruvananthapuram Chapter. Books and Certificates were distributed.
A Drama Workshop was conducted at Mar Baselios Engineering College, Thiruvananthapuram in 2019. Earlier one was conducted at Alappuzha.
VANITHA, a leading Magazine featured our Association in July, 2019.
We have started a You-tube Channel for our members who sing songs, recite poems, narrate stories etc. regularly.
We launched an e-magazine for our Association on 20th August, 2020, the day we completed five years of our activities.
Conducting a Three-day International Seminar; opening a library and Research Centre for women; shops for our books to enhance marketing ; our own house for Printing and Publishing ; a Women’s Theatre ; launching a magazine for women; collecting funds for helping women with financial constraints to publish their books etc. are some of our objectives.