shobhaa de seemed to build a case for this genre the craft of writing a short story is not easy to learn and githa raised a pertinent point when she said how the exercise of creative reading determines the quality of creative writing shobhaa de launched her latest shortstory collection small betrayals and said that writing short stories is like a stressbuster for her since this years theme was storytelling all participating speakers turned storytellers in their respective sessions for instance capt amarinder singh reminisced about his days in the army and expressed remorse at his decision of leaving the armed forces too soon while talking about his new biography the peoples maharajachetan bhagat jane austen and literature one of the most engaging discussions was on the value of commercial fiction where thoughtprovoking questions on what merits being called literary and commercial fiction were raised when vinita dawra nangia senior editor times of india asked if jane austen had written today would she be considered a literary or a commercial writer jaishree misra placed jane austen in the category of chic lit writers while manju kapur categorically denied the claim soon chetan bhagat was inevitably dragged into the debate while he is definitely the changemaker when it comes to redefining the rules of the publishing industry his writing is yet to leave a literary impression i dont think chetan bhagat is literature you cannot read chetan bhagat and pretend you are reading literature asserted manjukhushwant singh book renaming contest on the concluding day of the khushwant singh literary festival in kasauli a unique contest to rename singhs book i shall not hear the nightingale was announced in collaboration with the khushwant singh foundation and penguin india the competition is open across all agegroups and the winner shall be awarded on singhs centenary birth anniversary in 2015 when the book too would be rereleased chiki sarkar chief editor penguin india khushwant singhs daughter mala dayal publisher of ravi dayal books comprise the judging panel five poetry books that were shortlisted for the inaugural khushwant singh memorial prize for poetry at the lit fest are sridala swamis escape artist central time by ranjit hoskot when god is a traveller by arundhathi subramaniam keki n daruwallas fire altar and selected poems by joy goswami suhel seth had earlier this year announced this award in memory of khushwant singh the winner will be announced at the jaipur literature festival jlf in januaryother participants at the fest aakar patel brig brian mccall vijai vardhan dr a k banerjee arshia sattar asif noorani and manju kak among others were part of the threeday festival attentive listeners wellinformed readers and literary enthusiasts made for a powerpacked audienceorganising team rahul singh niloufer bilimoria ashok chopra