Submissions Open for Rainbow Awards for Literature & Journalism 2025

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The Rainbow Awards for Literature & Journalism 2025, opened for submissions on May 19 and will close on July 18, 2025. The focus of the Awards is to recognise authentic and unadulterated writing by queer and cis-heterosexual persons. The books and articles being nominated must be published between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025 (both days included).

As has been the case since its inception in 2023, the Awards have four categories, which are Fiction and Non Fiction in literature, and Features and Op Ed in journalism. Once nominations close on July 28, the nine-member jury goes into action, spending over two months to assess the entries, determining first a shortlist and then the winners. The Award’s ceremony is scheduled for the first week of December and will be held at the Rainbow Lit Fest – Queer & Inclusive.

The nine-member jury is chaired by senior journalist, Poonam Saxena, who is a writer and translator, often spotted at literary festivals across the country. She had a distinguished career with The Hindustan Times, where she launched and edited the HT Sunday magazine, Brunch, for over ten years, before moving on to edit the weekend section. She was also the co-author for filmmaker Karan Johar’s memoir, An Unsuitable Boy.

The Fiction segment is being judged by Anuja Chandramouli, who is a best-selling and award-winning author. She is a new age Indian classicist widely regarded as one of the finest writers in mythology, historical fiction and fantasy. With Anuja is Shals Mahajan who is a critically acclaimed writer, activist and likes to describe themselves as a ‘layabout, part feline, somewhat hooman genderqueer fellow’.

Judging the Non Fiction category is Himanjali Sankar who is an editor and award-winning writer. She was formerly Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster. Also adjudicating this category is the Senior Editor of News Operations at Hindustan Times, Dhrubo Jyoti. They are closely linked to the movement around caste and sexuality that aims to centre Dalit voices in India’s LGBTQIA+ movements.

The Features category is being judged by the veteran award-winning journalist, Dibeyendu Ganguly. While he wrote extensively on queer issues in Times of India and The Economic Times, he had also contributed to pioneering magazines such as Bombay Dost and Trikone. Accompanying in assessing entries in this category is K Vaishali who is an award-winning author. She’s been recognized as a queer role model by egomonk and selected as the Specific Learning Disabilities delegate at the 2024 International Purple Fest organized by the Government of India.

The Op Ed category is being judged by the award-winning independent journalist, Nidhi Suresh. She has over seven years of experience reporting on gender-based violence, crime, politics and militarization. With her judging the category is Chittajit Mitra who is a queer writer, translator and journalist. Amongst other things in the world of literature and writing, they co-founded RAQS (Resistive Alliance for Queer Solidarity).

The founder of the Awards, who is critically acclaimed author and Festival Director of the Rainbow Lit Fest – Queer & Inclusive, Sharif D Rangnekar says: ‘We expect more nominations this year as even before we announced dates, we have received a large number of queries from journalists, writers and publishing houses. While in a way this suggests there is more writing about queer lives, we hope that our larger objective of supporting a genre is slowly become a reality’.

The awards are supported by a strong and large network of queer community groups including GLAD Foundation, The Humsafar Trust, Keshav Suri Foundation, the LGBTQIA+ Centre, Misfyt, Naz Foundation, Nazariya – QFRG, Official Humans of Queer, The QKnit Foundation, Sweekar – The Rainbow Parents and Ya All. The bookstore and process partner for the awards is Kunzum Books.

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