Alice Sharma, a 22-year-old girl from New Delhi has etched her name as one of the 100 inspiring authors and leading ladies in India. She has also made it to the India Book of Records for being the youngest writer to publish four books in a single day. She also runs a youth-oriented NGO, VastraAurZindagiyan Foundation, and serves as its CEO.
This young author spoke to LifeBeyondNumbers and shared her journey so far.
Becoming a writer
It seems that writing was secretly predestined for Alice. She never planned on choosing the field but life happened and she soon found herself in the ocean of words. Alice began writing as a blogger for a whole year before being a novelist. Once a law college aspirant, Sharma dropped everything to write her way to success.
“In 2016, after completing high school, I gave my entrance for law colleges, and also managed to get into a good one. Just before the admission process could begin, my health deteriorated and I was bedridden for the next 3 months. This made me drop an entire year. It was an extremely depressing phase knowing that I (almost) made it to my dream college, yet I couldn’t be there. That was exactly when writing made its way to me. I started with writing blogs. Soon, the blogs went viral and my content was getting insane recognition. It was in 2017 that I launched my first book, The Last Board Exam, which became an instant bestseller on Amazon. This helped me decide where my heart belonged. It was never about a law college again,” shared Alice explaining her initial days.
Soon after, she wrote her second book, Longer Than Forever, which became an instant bestseller and made her one of the 100 inspiring authors of India.
“In 2018. I wrote another book – “Longer than forever” – which made it to the bestselling charts online and in oxford bestselling stands. It got me the National Literary Award – “100 inspiring authors of India” by The Indian Awaz. Since then, there has been no looking back,” the author further shared.
Starting an NGO
The same year, Alice also started her NGO – VastraAurZindagiyan Foundation. It is a youth-oriented social work organization, headquartered in Delhi.
VastraAurZindagiyan aims to uplift the underprivileged sections, providing them with clothes, sanitation facilities, and education. They organize monthly food and clothes donation drives. During the lockdown, they fed meals to more than 6,000 people and provided them with clothes and ration kits.
A segment of the organization also works towards the education of the underprivileged children. They provide free study materials to the children and also help them strengthen their leadership potential to fight all odds.
The NGO aims to reach out to more and more unfortunate kids, women, and the LGBTQ+ community in the coming days.
“We are all taking so much from society, what matters the most is are we giving back to make the society grow. With the intent to ‘make lives less vulnerable’, I started the NGO. It’s been 2 years and we’ve made remarkable efforts in uplifting the underprivileged sections,” quoted Alice expressing her foundation’s motto.
Yet social work was just an addition to what she is. Her journey as a writer continued and a year later in 2019, Alice was included in the India Book of Records for publishing 4 books in a single day. The next year in 2020, she was felicitated by the INBA as “The Phenomenal She” which included 100 leading ladies of India.
Public speaking
Besides being a writer and social worker, Alice is also into public speaking. She has conducted above 20 workshops through her NGO where she has been the keynote speaker. Sharma has also delivered motivational talks in various reputed colleges including Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University where she was invited as a guest speaker to talk about ‘How to become a successfully published author‘. The College of Vocational Studies, Delhi University, also invited her as a speaker in the guest panel to explain how she broke the stereotypes and made her way into the literary world.
Future ambitions
When asked about her future goals Alice answered, “I’m not the kind of person who likes to keep a long-term future planned. If you ask me, where I want to see myself in the next 5 years, I would have no answer to it. What if I don’t get to live the next year? I prefer living in the present and so I have been trying to incline myself towards a certain thing that will remain even when I’m long gone. But yes, I do aspire to crack the World and Limca Book Of Records someday.”