Last Thursday, Year 4 were treated to a live Q&A with Jasbinder Bilan, author of ‘Asha and the Spirit Bird,’ which is our class book for this term, as part of our India IC topic.

With over 50 of us on the Google Meet, Miss Farrell introduced our guest and then the girls put forward their questions to Jasbinder, winner of several prizes for her novel, including the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition 2017 and the 2019 Costa Children’s Book Award.

Question from Lana (4C): How many hours a day do you spend writing your books?

Answer from Jasbinder Bilan: Good question! It usually depends on which stage you’re at with your writing.

So if it’s a first draft, I might spend a couple of hours writing then a couple of hours thinking, sketching and making notes, so at this stage I might go for a walk. If I am editing, I am going back into it and changing lots of bits. At that stage, I would do a lot in one go, so start at 9 in the morning and carry on writing until 4, 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening.

Question from Ana Sofia (4F): How long did it take to write the whole book?

A: When I write the book I was studying to be a writer on a MA course. It took me about 6 months for the first draft. Then I spent one more year working on it and changing it making it the best story it could be. So in total about a year and a half.

Question from Anishka (4F): When you were writing the book did you like to write anywhere special?

A: I don’t have a special place to write because we moved house two years ago. I like to move around the house, so I have a desk in the sitting room, but there is a lovely chair by the window with a view into the garden that I like to write in too. Or if I want another change, I might go into the kitchen.

Question from Anya (4F): Who or what inspired you to become an author?

Really good question. When I was your age or younger, one of the things I love doing was writing. I wrote lots of stories and illustrated them too. I used to take the stories to a neighbour down the road who would gather them together for me and give me a hot chocolate and a fairy cake!

I always wanted to be a writer from age 7 or 8, but didn’t manage it until a lot later. I always wrote though. I was a teacher but I decided to stop teaching for a while so I could take a course to learn to write. I took the course and wrote my book during it and became a writer.

The inspiration for the book is my relationship with my grandma. I really wanted to write about India where I was born and someone like my grandmother. I had a strong picture of a little girl in the mountains playing with the dust and water, so I started to think about the girl and write about what I saw, so that became the inspiration for my writing.

Question from Zoi (4C): How many times did you have to edit the book before it got published?

Another really good question. I worked on it a lot before it was published. I spent around a year trying to change it. When I wrote it first it was in the past tense. To get a book published, you have to find an agent, so I sent it out to a few people. Some thought it would work better in the present tense so I went through the whole book to change it, which took a while!

I entered the book in the Chicken House competition for unpublished writers and won, so that’s how I  got the book published!

Question from Amaya (4F): Have your children read your book and if they have what do they think of it?

I have two teenage boys aged 19 and 17. I’m going to be totally honest and say I’m sad to say they haven’t read it yet! I’ll let you know what they think when they do.

Following a lovely summary from Chloe R on where we were up to, we were treated to Jasbinder reading the following two chapters aloud to us.

The chapters both ended very dramatically and provoked lots of shocked comments on the Google Meet chatbox! Jasbinder asked us what we thought about Jeevan, Asha’s friend, changing his mind and she encouraged us to see things from his point of view as well as Asha’s.

Jasbinder let us into a little secret at this point – when she first wrote the book, Jeevan DID come with Asha! But she added this twist in there to get the readers’ attention! It was interesting to see the effect of a main character ‘losing’ something in the middle of a story can create a shock for the reader, even it the author ‘gives’ that something back at a later stage. We also spoke about the wide range of emotions Asha would be feeling at this point in the story and also if we would ever consider cutting our own beautiful long hair off as she did (many responses of ‘No!’ and ‘Never!’).

Thank you so much to Jasbinder for answering our questions and reading us two chapters of the book. We can’t wait to read the rest of it now after these dramatic chapters! We are also looking forward to Jasbinder’s second novel, ‘Tamarind And The Star Of Ishta‘ which is out on September 3rd. Another magical realist adventure set in the Himalaya, it includes a magical garden, a mysterious mountain girl and a very cute golden monkey called Hanu. We can’t wait!