Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet (Kalam), held in association with The Telegraph, will begin with a Children’s Literary Meet, partnered by TTIS, this year. 

To be held on January 22 and 23, two days ahead of the five-day Kalam, the children’s meet will have a host of well-known authors speaking to the young ones as well as workshops on writing and illustrations, dramatised storytelling, book readings and performances. 

The sessions and activities will be held at Victoria Memorial Hall, which is a co-host of the meet, and at bookstore partner Story, on Elgin Road. 

The top draw of the two-day meet will, of course, be the grand old man of Indian storytelling in English — Ruskin Bond. His sessions at previous editions of Kalam have seen huge crowds and this year is likely to be no different. 

The other name to watch out for is actor Rahul Bose, who will speak about his biopic, Poorna, and his childhood heroes from cinema and literature.

Bengali writer Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, whose crazy-charming characters have delighted children and adults for generations, will also attend the meet. 

Actress, writer and child rights activist Nandana Dev Sen will be here with her book, Not Yet. That apart, there will be writers like Samhita Arni, Samit Basu and Jash Sen speaking on a host of topics. 

Kalam director Malavika Banerjee said: “At Tata Steel Kalam, it’s not like we try to do different things, it’s just nicer to do things differently. We have been taking writers to schools but we have a critical mass as far as young readers are concerned and that’s why I thought we should do this as an investment to keep the reading habit going.” 

The full schedule is available at www.kolkatalitmeet.in/clm