The name Venita Coelho may not ring a bell to most but those in the know are only too aware of this multi-faceted person. For starters, Venita has attempted a JK Rowling by launching her children’s book ‘Dungeon Tales’ at Landmark last week. “My book does have talking needles, genies and purple parrots but my writing a children’s book doesn’t really have anything to do with the success of the Harry Potter series; I started writing this book almost two years back,” she explains.
“I was actually working on another novel of mine, which is a serious period story set in Gothic Goa. But since its writing involved heavy duty research, I told myself—why not take a break from this and write a fun fantasy for kids? And that’s how I ended up writing the ‘Dungeon Tales’,” notes Venita, who is based in Goa.
What’s also interesting is that this former vice president of Sony Television is currently the creative head, fiction, for Endemol India. “The company has just started a fiction section and we are planning to start work on a series,” she elaborates.
She’s also writing screenplays and is presently writing for director Rahul Rawail. “While I’m not supposed to say much, I can say that it’s a satire that revolves around selling sexuality through the media,” reveals Venita, who last penned a screenplay for the Sanjay Gupta film ‘Musafir’.
“Working with Sanjay was good fun. At first, I thought to myself—how am I supposed to do this? But I went ahead with it and we partied almost all the time,” says Venita, who also doubles up as an artist when she’s not writing or spending time with her four cats, two dogs and a horse. Now that’s an all-rounder!
p_vidya@dnaindia.net
