KATHMANDU: Just like an illuminating junkiri (firefly) that gives people light in the dark, Rising Junkiri is a website that has been relentlessly working as a platform for Nepali writers here and abroad. Rising Junkiri started as a platform for Ranjan Poudel to share his experience about student life in America. Through the website, he would answer people’s queries regarding visa, paperwork, scholarships and working permit, among others, in the US.

After 2014, Rising Junkiri gradually transformed as the platform for people to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences in form of poems, stories and articles. Ranjan believes that “creativity can act like fuel that illuminates people’s surroundings.”

“Our foremost priority is to share the stories, experiences or articles written by bloggers, regardless of their origin. But Rising Junkiri has been focusing on Nepali writers who want to express their ideas in Nepali and English medium,” Ranjan shared in an online interview.

Though Rising Junkiri has been fully functional in Nepal as well as in the US since its inception, it has been only about four months that the website expanded its team and started to work more actively. Ranjan said they had started to organize events and workshops where bloggers and writers are encouraged to share experiences through their writing. Altogether Rising Junkiri have a team of eight — three in the US and five in Nepal — all of whom are young, energetic and dedicated bloggers.

But Rising Junkiri did not see popularity since the beginning. “For a constant amount of time, Rising Junkiri had less than 100 bloggers and interaction within the website was limited. I have seen Rising Junkiri grow, and now we have more than 200 contributing bloggers,” shared Anushruti Adhikari, a member of Rising Junkiri.

Though you don’t necessarily need to have a blog to be a part of Rising Junkiri or submit your writings, many of the existing members have a blog of their own. You don’t have to be a professional writer, while creators are free to send their articles and poems both in Nepali and English languages.

Even if you are new to blogging, or writing itself, you can submit your writings to Rising Junkiri. “We see plenty of people who are starting fresh and their writing is raw. But that’s what makes it more relatable and real,” added Anushruti.

Interested writers and poets can either post their creation in the website with a username and password or also send it to Rising Junkiri via email and Facebook. “Whatever content we receive we try to keep the editing as minimalistic as possible to retain the writers’ originality. Apart from grammatical mistakes, we don’t prefer to do heavy editing. If heavy editing is required, we send it back to the writer. Also, we absolutely discourage plagiarism,” said Senior Editor and Communications Manager of Rising Junkiri, Pratakshya Bhandari.

“We know we have yet to touch the hearts of thousands of bloggers in Nepal. And we will continue to reach them in the future,” Ranjan shared his plans.