Festival Mags.

Dussehra specials have arrived in the news stands of Koraput district. Poets and writers have been making their queue to see if their articles , stories and poems were featured in them . It is a long wait for most of the contributors to see their names in the Oriya literary magazines specially published during the Dussehra celebrations in the state .
There is a great amount of rush at the publishing house with the increasing amount of writers contributing for the Puja issue and hence contributions had to be sent at least three months before this date , a poet said while selecting the magazine which he could purchase .

This practice of publishing special issues dates back to 1955 when there were only a handful of magazines publishing from the state like Jhankar, Samabesho and Galpo bringing out special editions Narayan Panda , an eminent short story writer from the region said, . However largely the trend of publishing special editions during the festival was brought to the state from West Bengal by Asantakali , a literary magazine published from Kolkotta . Readers had also liked the issues and were keeping them in their shelves as literary treasure Observing the positive trend in the growing readership more and more publishers got interested to publish such special issues taking it to more than 70 magazines hitting the stands these days , he said .

While more and more writers got the opportunity to place their articles before the readers, every writer was not able to reach the common reader for the huge number of items getting published in a single issue, Pritidhara Samal , a Poet of repute who has been featured in several prominent magazines for the last 15 years , said . Moreover most of these magazines , being published only once in a year baring a few which get published on a regular basis, the quality of contributions was also compromised , Jayant Mishra, another writer from Koraput added.
The growing price of such special issues was also making it difficult for the readers to purchase more than one , Rabi Satpathy , a poet said . Without the provision of complementary copy and payment for the contributors , the magazines look good on the stand than in the personal cupboard for many of the creators , he added