How I'm Using Imaginative Worlds to Make Sense of the News

I’m Rayaan, a journalist from Chennai, India.

You've just stepped into something I've been building for a while now: a newsletter where you can learn to make sense of our chaotic world through the lens of speculative journalism and fiction.

I’ve worked with smallest of newsrooms to national dailies in the past near seven years of my career. One thing that I’ve learnt for sure is how people are just pissed with journalism. TV news channels are shit and so are newspapers. Very few reporters are doing honest job. And people hardly pay or support high quality reporting anyways. And on top of this AI tools are amplifying the fake news mess.

Thus news feels like doom-scrolling on steroids—endless crises, zero context, no room to breathe. We’re just getting angrier and annoyed. Things are beyond F-ed up.

But it need not be that way. Amid all this hopeless toxic digital spiral we’re used to, there are still writers/creators who are offering value by solving a specific problem to a specific reader. And they do it by not even using the word ‘journalism’ or ‘news’ across their site.

Take publications such as every.to — they do impeccable essays on AI + philosophy. Likewise, other niche writers exist who offer essays, features or analysis on varied topics: Nicolas Cole, Dickie Bush, Ambreen Ali, Jaspreet Bindra, to name a few.

Following their work inspired me to find my niche. The idea sparked during my time at the Young India Fellowship at Ashoka University, where I learned it's vital to approach problems with a broad framework. There's no right or wrong—just what works and what doesn't.

That's when I realized: fiction plays a key part in our lives. We read it to kill time. We watch it (Netflix binges). We listen to it (Spotify on repeat, podcasts). Literary worlds from Lord of the Rings to Hunger Games to Harry Potter crowd our bookshelves. Books, pop-culture, media, and the Internet aren't just entertainment to escape our sad reality—they're blueprints for what's coming next.

Fiction helps us think bigger. Fiction helps us process chaos. Journalism keeps us anchored to truth. Together, they make us think, laugh, reflect, and act. The Fiction Emailer is built on that belief. What if Brandon Sanderson or J.R.R. Tolkien ran a 21st-century newsroom? That's the spirit here.

Every month, you'll get short stories and novellas set in the Paper Chronicles Universe—a fictional world where journalists investigate gods, conspiracies, and steampunk newsrooms. It's myth, media, and mystery rolled into one genre-bending blend of fantasy, retrofuturism, and cyberpunk.

You'll also get essays that decode headlines, imagine optimistic futures, and explore writings that shaping cultural conversations. Plus interviews with storytellers in The Storytellers' Room and curated reading picks that cut through the noise.

To be honest, there are comparative examples: Asimov Press, The Science of Fiction, Locus Magazine. Closer home, Indian creators are making spectacular leaps—MAYA by Anand Gandhi and Zain Memon, Vaibhav Chavan's Mukti from Underdogs Studio. These are optimistic attempts by Indian storytellers to take imagination global.

I've admired how these creative entrepreneurs offer value to niche audiences. That's what I'm doing with The Fiction Emailer.

This newsletter isn't for everyone—but if you finish novels and immediately google "what does this mean for the real world?" you read past headlines, and you see fiction as a blueprint, not an escape, you're home.

Let's decode the world together—one story at a time.