Dr. Geralyn Pinto lives life between a page and a stage. By day she teaches and at night is a serious creative writer. Her creative work, which spans the genres of poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction writing, has been featured in Indian and international journals, webzines and anthologies. She has won recognition and prizes at national and worldwide creative writing contests.
Among her significant publications are: the mock heroic poem ‘Forever Baboo’ published in ‘Moving Worlds’, a journal of intercultural studies brought out by the University of Leeds (Fall 2004); her non-fiction piece ‘One-Winged Angels’ was featured in the internationally circulated and renowned series Chicken Soup for the Indian Teacher’s Soul (2010); a poem ‘Less Is More’ featured on the British webzine ‘Bolts of Silk’ on the occasion of ‘Global Tigers Day’, (July 2012); ‘Shining’ a poetic tribute to Mother Teresa, and ‘Daffed – the Giant Slayer’, a short story, both published in ‘Hitherto’, a worldwide journal brought out by the Humanities Department of Mahidol University, Thailand (Nov 2012)
Her piece of non-fiction writing ‘Re-Routing’ won the Second Prize in the National-level ‘Outlook Magazine-Picador (India) Contest’ in 2005. In 2010, her short story ‘Two Is Company’ won the First Prize in the Unisun- Reliance TimeOut Creative Writing Contest out of more than 3000 entries worldwide. Her poem ‘His Last Hour’ was shortlisted in the Save as Writers ‘International Dickens Creative Writing Contest’, while her story ‘No talking after Lights Out’ was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Save as Writers ‘Open-themed International Creative Writing Contest in Feb 2013. (‘Save as Writers’ is Canterbury’s most active creative writing group). In September 2013, her short story ‘Two Flew Over’, based on the theme of child labour, won the Second Prize in the International South-Asian level ‘Desi Writers Lounge’ Short Story Contest 2013. On October 26th, 2013, Geralyn won the Third Prize for her short story ‘I’ll do, I’ll do and I’ll do’, a modern take on ‘Macbeth’, at the International Shakespearean Creative Writing contest organized by the Save as Writers group. She received the prize at the Shakespeare Awards Evening held at the Dominican Priory, Canterbury.
She has recently returned from a highly successful academic and creative writing trip to England and Ireland. On October 20th 2013, Geralyn attended the launch of In Protest, an anthology of poetry on human rights in which her poem ‘Shot through with Metal’ was featured. The poems in the anthology were selected from more than 600 poems fielded from over 50 countries worldwide. The anthology was published by the University of London. The launch was held at the Senate House of London University. She also attended two workshops both of them conducted by prominent British poets in Canterbury.
Geralyn was invited to deliver two lectures on ‘Contemporary Issues in Indian Writings in English’ at Queen’s University, Belfast. While at the university she was also invited to attend the launch of the Belfast Open University and was welcomed personally by the Lord Mayor of Belfast.
In 2005, Geralyn earned a PhD from the University of Mangalore for her thesis ‘A Study of Narrative Technique with special reference to the Works of Amitav Ghosh’.
A gifted actress she performed on stage for the western theatre goers of her hometown before she began directing plays for her vibrant theatre group ‘Curtain Raisers’ at St Agnes College (Autonomous) where she serves as Associate Professor and Head, Department of English.
She is a member of the British-based online creative writers group ‘Alibi Writers’ and participates in their monthly online workshops.
Her poem ‘Last Crow Summer’ made it to the shortlist of the RaedLeaf Poetry India 2013 contest, India’s most prestigious poetry competition.
Geralyn is engaged in writing her first novel.