Come the summer of 2018, having just successfully conducted a ground breaking season of The Stories Untold, Daastan teamed up with a few others who were also in the race to bring quality literature to their readers. Since its inception, Daastan and Qissa have scaled, and eventually launched a writing competition which was dubbed “Literati”. The team was once again taking not only Pakistan by storm, but also slowly but surely taking over the world too. And so, to bring another round of thought-provoking stories that made one bite their nails with the anticipation of what was coming next, we opened the award for participants from all over South Asia.
Literati Micro Fiction:
Literati was brought to the public in collaboration with White Falcon Publishing, a company that provided the services of self-publishing much the same way as us and encouraged quality literature to find its way to the surface, but across the border in India. Another collaborator of the micro story writing competition was Outcast, a queer lit magazine which was founded by a graduated Literary Fellow of Daastan. The authors of the micro fiction award were given a time period of one month, in which they were to write short stories with no more than 2500 words on the themes of “The Fifth Rivulet” and “Mosaiced Souls”. The themes themselves were enough to get any true storyteller thinking and dreaming in their world of imagination, spinning and weaving tales which would eventually find their way to our screens.
Daastan, in collaboration with White Falcon Publishing and Outcast Magazine, launches Literati Competition
The Result:
The award was closed a month after its launch, and all the partners were delighted to received more than a hundred submissions of gripping and awe-inspiring literature. The submissions were all carefully reviewed, and the top 20 were selected. These finalists would receive the exciting prize of seeing their work go into print, along with exclusive opportunities to further their career as a writer.
[Results] We are pleased to announce that the management team of LITERATI 2018 comprising of Daastan, White Falcon Publishing and Outcast Magazine congratulates the finalists.We received around 100 submissions from all over South Asia and after carefully reviewing each submission, we are pleased to announce that we now, finally have the TOP 20.These authors will be getting their stories published in PRINT, sponsored by WHITE FALCON PUBLISHING. We have lot of awesomeness coming up in next few weeks.It was a pleasure having you all. We will be back next year in June 2019. Till then adios.#Daastan #WhiteFalconPublishing #Outcast #Literati #SouthAsianAward #MicroFiction #PrintPublishing #WritingEvent #Competition
Only a journey of three short and sweet months into the launch of Qissa, Daastan’s Facebook family grew to ten thousand strong. It was a momentous achievement for us. Not only were we touching the lives of thousands of people offline, but our reach had also crossed the 5-digit mark. The team that worked day and night felt invincible, and were aiming for heights that grazed the highest of mountains and then went a bit further. Along with the feeling of happiness though was attached a feeling of responsibility. The executives of the company understood that from then onward, every little thing they would share with their community would have to be one which contributed positively in the life of all their readers.
Our Journey Continues on Facebook!
And thus, began the second phase in the journey of Daastan growing its Facebook family. The page not only serves as the central social media hub for Daastan, apart from its websites, but is also used as a breaking-news room for the company. It features all the news of happenings from both inside and outside Daastan, letting our community know about our achievements. The crowd funding campaigns that Daastan became famous for, which helped bring the work of their authors to print, are now also all held on Facebook.
We Know We Make An Impact
Our Facebook serves as a way for us to interact with the community. We eventually hired social media representatives who would post questions and anecdotes that helped keep the conversation flowing. Daastan also utilized this resource by sharing each and every opportunity that came their way through their friends. Daastan coined its very own hashtags such as #AchievementUnlocked, which was later adopted by many companies for sharing their accomplishments with their social media gang. And so, a couple years after the first monumental breakthrough in the number of followers, Daastan saw that their reach had doubled to twenty thousand. Looking back now, it seems that it wasn’t only the numbers that grew so remarkably, but also the impact.
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It was William Shakespeare who said that, “Some are born great, while others achieve greatness”. For the young girl Lareb Soomro, we at Daastan believe it might be both. Being able to bring our author’s writings to print, shaping her dream to reality, is one of the most fulfilling feelings we have ever witnessed as a company. From our Founder to our Editors and Designers, we all hold our breath and stare in awe as each piece finds its way to the racks of Qissa. Every once in a while, however, there comes along an author whose success seems so grand that our feeling of awe becomes tenfold.
Book Launch of Lareb Soomro, held under Literary Evenings Vol. 2
Lareb’s story of success didn’t start when she published her book, in fact they began the day she came into this world. She was born in the small town Larkana, which is filled to the brim with history of resilience and courage. She became another one who would contribute to the legacy. Lareb was born with a genetic defect that required her to go into surgery in the tender age of 3 months. After she grew up, in her early teens she faced and survived a road accident that left scars on her face. She was haunted by criticism and taunts, which followed her all the way to her passion of writing. Despite being continually discouraged, she stood strong in the face of everything, and finallypublished her book through Daastan.
Rising to Stardom:
The book made her a celebrity. She was interviewed by 14 news outlets for her story, and even offered the role of a news anchor at Larkano News HD. She believes in facing her demons face first, and encourages all her readers to find solutions for their problems instead of giving up.
[TRAILBLAZERS] Presenting you second episode of trailblazers where we showcase Daastan's social impact on community. See how we are challenging the status quo and providing authors the platform through which they can chase their dreams.Our second trailblazer is Lareb Soomro from Larkana, Sindh who was born with a genetic defect and underwent a facial surgery at the age of three months.In her early teens, she survived a fatal road accident which left permanent scars on her face. Despite of immense social pressure, taunts and criticism she pursued her passion to write and ultimately published at age of 15 to become Sindh's youngest published author.Her debut book 'The Secrets of Spring' is a horror novel which showcases the creativity of a teenage girl. Using Daastan's platform, Lareb was able to raise 25,000 PKR in a week through pre-orders to publish 100 copies of her work.Her book made her an overnight star. 14+ news outlets covered her story. She was also offered a role of TV anchoring in her hometown, Larkana by Larkano News HD.Her story explains that there is nothing out there which is NOT possible. We can always get what we want, provided that we put in enough effort and show resilience. Life is unfair and we must get used to it.Our #EmergingStar Lareb is currently writing the second part of the story which will be out in 2019. If you believe in what we do and want to support us then place an order of her hard copy @ https://www.meraqissa.com/book/342Price: 500 PKR#Daastan #EmergingStar #TrailBlazer #LarebSoomro #Larkana #Sindh
With Qissa nearing its second anniversary soon, we are proud of having published more than 200 books in 13 genres. Our authors are spread all over the world with active participation from 17 countries. Daastan happened upon a gem of a find. It came in the shape of Ms. Ramsha Babar, a doctor-to-be who had written a book about mental health, or more specifically schizophrenia, and wanted to publish it via Qissa.
Qissa Becomes the Hub of Previously Unvoiced Stories:
Our major focus in terms of the content we publish has always been to ensure that whatever work we receive is, of premium quality. Secondly, our chief concerns is to publish content that challenges the wrong conventions in our society. Our stories depict exceptions which not only hold their ground against the horrors in our society, but also help others in raising their voices and spreading awareness about it. It is due to this very reason that Daastan recurrently launched The Stories Untold. The themes we discuss, force people to pause and think about our maligned traditions that transgress basic human rights. Qissa features books about the abused, the ostracized, and the discarded, to humanize them and consequently help them make a place for themselves in this society
Humanizing Schizophrenia:
With her book“Broken Winged Birds”, Ms. Ramsha helped us further our cause. The book, inspired from her personal life. It highlights the symptoms and behavior of a person suffering from schizophrenia. Her book, above all brought, to light the fact that these patients could be treated and cured. The protagonist, after seeing visions and losing consciousness for a few days, finds herself in a mental health institution. She discovers that her family has given her up for lunacy. The book is a roller coaster ride in which all the essential components of one’s life; religion, science, society and the stigmas regarding mental health that we have to wade through every day, are brought to the front and seamlessly woven into a tale of education and awareness. Her work is carefully written combining technical medical knowledge with literature.
The novel, after raising 20,000 PKR, was brought into print just a few months after the author got in touch with us. It was later on featured on platforms such as Doctor’s Tribune, and The Humorists, who applauded the effort of the writer and her work.
If you have an expert’s opinion on a topic and want to share it with the world, reach out to us at Daastanand we will help propagate your voice to the masses.
If there is one thing that Daastan’s founder, Mr. Syed Ommer Amer, has always been proud of, it ishis exceptional team. Singular in passion, and absolutely awe inspiring, his team has been exceptional when it comes to helping Daastan achieve its goals. Mr. Ommer attributes Daastan’s continuous success to his brilliant team, that never fails to amaze him and has never let him down.
Meet Our Team
Ms. Mahnoor Naseer:
The first core member we will celebrate here is Mahnoor Naseer. Mahnoor’s journey with Daastan began when she applied to be a part of the debut batch of the Literary Fellowship. Throughout the fellowship, she showed more great potential. Upon graduating she launched a global digital platform for artists to share their work, called “The Ancient Souls”. Mahnoor helped Daastan set up our operations across the border in India, and eventually rose to the level of Editor in Chief with her constant struggles to aid Daastan. An electrical engineer by profession, she has never let her degree limit her to one field of expertise and has self-taught herself to be a storyteller, a poet, and a transcriptionist. Recently, she has had the honor of being selected as a Citizen Historian for the 1947 Partition Archive, which is a non-governmental and non-political organization working on the preservation and archival of the stories of people who were displaced in the 1947 partition.
Ms. Momina Latif:
The second member to be brought to the spotlight is Momina Latif, the design lead at Daastan. Momina is also Co-founder Jadugar and co., a company which provides corporate design solutions to products and brands. She is the brains and creative head behind most of the book covers published through Qissa. Moreover, she has provided Daastan with some sensational social media designs over the years. Momina has been selected as a mentee for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, a program held in London which gives professional training to help develop women’s small, and medium enterprises into growing sustainable empires. She will be receiving training from the world’s best entrepreneurs in the world, who will teach her how to unlock her hidden potential and scale to newer heights.
Ms. Momina Latif selected as a mentee in Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
Ms. Sidra Amin:
The last, but essentially the most important one, is Sidra Amin. To sum her up in just a few lines would not be possible, but to name a few of her accomplishments – she is the Co-Founder Daastan, the person who has put piece upon piece together to bring the company where it stands now. Ms. Sidra Amin is also Co-Founder Words and Metaphors, KPK’s first spoken word platform, as well as Co-Founder Peshawar Book Club, which holds monthly meetings and discusses each book chosen in depth. Sidra is a mechatronics engineer by profession, and an expert at surprising everyone with all that she can achieve. She has lately been interviewed by Dergi, a lifestyle magazine which has a reach of more than 5000 across social media. In the interview, she talks about her inspirations, and how to create the magic that we see sparking off of her. She has also been invited asa speaker of the WomenWill panel at BizFest Peshawar.
Ms. Sidra Amin, invited as a speaker in Peshawar BizFest 2018
We are proud of these immensely talented women who have worked hard to establish Daastan. It is this combined effort that has given Daastan its wings. The secret to our success is definetely our team to whom all the credit goes! We also thank you for your constant support and welcome you to join us in our cause of putting a book in each hand!
