Author Interview with Sita Brahmachari

Can you tell us a little about your writing process – how do you decide which book to write, how do you do research, do you plan with an outline or write as you go?

I have a patchwork storytelling quilting process that has grown over time. Often my writing process starts with a doodle (like Mira!), I will begin by sketching a map and a patchwork piece of a poem. This is something quite stream of consciousness and flowing. Sometimes the poem wants to be a poem, and I hone it till it speaks and sometimes it wants to grow into another form like a play, a novel, a novella, or short story. I do not really understand what it is until the first draft is written. Then I can begin to unravel the mystery for myself and after that, work out the best way to unfold the mystery for the reader.

Once I start to meet and know my characters I will often research with children and young adults. Sometimes this research takes a long time. In the case of my novel Red Leaves, I worked with children in a writing group for over a year. In the case of When Shadows Fall, I have been working with children excluded from school at various points in my career since my early twenties.

Working in community, particularly with people who have been displaced from around this globe, has always been part of my life. Connecting with people whose lives have much in common with my own and those whose lives, paths and journeys are completely different to my experience, is what keeps me learning and open to attempting to step into the shoes, minds, and hearts of intergenerational characters. Oral history is an important part of my storytelling journey, and I love hearing older people talk about their memories and the way in which they experienced life in different periods.

The habit of research and writing down memories and feelings comes from my childhood. In Kite Spirit I drew on my Lake District family stories and in Jasmine Skies, in which Mira goes to India to trace her family history, I drew on my own childhood journals. In When Secrets Set Sail, I remembered some of my father’s own stories of arriving in Britain ‘The Motherland’ on the long ship passage from India.

Is there a book that you have read that you wish you had written? Or a book that you had written you wish were either published or better received?

A book I love very much is ‘The Weight of Water’ by Sarah Crossan. I love the form of free verse and the deep empathy for the characters. Az Dassu’s ‘Boy Everywhere’ stole my heart and Jasbinder Bilan’s ‘Aarti and The Blue Gods,’ spoke straight into me.

When Secrets Set Sail was published just at the tail end of Lockdown. The disruption to bookshops, libraries and in education at that time meant that I did not get the opportunity to meet so many readers. However, with the support of Farhanah Mamoojee of @Ayahshome, Rozina Visram, Sanchita Basu De Sarkar at The Children’s Book Shop giving it an online launch and then the promotion by Blackwells Books and South Asian Heritage Month the story has now made its way in the world.

(When Secrets Set Sail – Online Launch at Children’s Book Shop, Muswell Hill. Window painted by Jane Ray.)

What are you working on currently – if you are allowed to share it?

I am always working on my patchwork pieces of writing and growing new stories. In 2027 Templar Books will publish a new collaboration with Jane Ray. I am also dreaming up another Young Adult story. Many patchwork pieces of poetry are being sewn right now and I am looking forward to Sudha Buchar’s forthcoming adaptation of Artichoke Hearts for the stage also planned for 2027.

I am currently collaborating with Publisher Nicky Parker ay Amnesty Poland on a cross European Project entitled ‘Seen and Heard’ in which I am listening close to what children have to say about how their rights are being upheld or ignored. The work as Writer in Residence at Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants that began in 2012, continues.

Is there a difference on how to approach writing before and after you get an agent / be published? What is your advice for beginning writers and mid-level writers?

I did not write my first novel thinking of anyone at all except the story. I knew it was through the eyes of a child, but I did not even know it was for children or imagine a reader except my family! That is how I have tried to continue to write. To let the story out in the truest was I knew how to. After that, knowing my stories have an audience amongst young people I think deeply about the child or young adult reader and what the experience of reading the story would be. I begin with my protagonists and think – how would it be for a child like Mira, Imtiaz, Aisha, Cosmo, or Amir to read this story? During the whole editing stage, I am alive to how the story can empower young people to free their own voices.

I have never written a book I was not fired up to write and I never want to. Writing for children and young adults is a real privilege and they will know if you are not writing with your heart and soul.

Every story you write, no matter how experienced you are, will teach you something completely new. Writing a story is as much about getting lost as it is about finding your way. If it is not constantly surprising for the writer, it will not be for the reader either. Every story feels like it demands something new from me.

Present agents and editors with the story that you dream to tell in your own unique voice. As Sam Swinnerton, the talented editor of many of my stories, who as a junior editor all those years ago picked up Artichoke Hearts off the slush pile, says - if the voice sings, then you have something precious. Once that is there you can begin discussing what is successfully conveying or not. I listen closely to my agent’s and editor’s readings of my work and to the young readers I share my drafts with.

Nana Josie’s storytelling palette containing all the colours of her painting life - from *Artichoke Hearts*

If you could change one thing in your writing career, either personally, professionally or in the industry, what would it be?

I wish I had found my writing voice earlier. I was always writing as a child and teenager but did not find the confidence to show my writing to anyone until after my father died in 2008. He was always encouraging me to publish my work. I regret dad did not get to read the stories I have written in which his generation’s struggles are also honoured. Nana Josie, Grandad Bimal, Baba Suli, Mira, Krish, Amir, Priya, Laila, Kai, Omid … I hope that these names, once absent from stories for children and young adults will continue to contribute to sparking imaginations and a love of fiction in a new generation of readers and writers.

Author Interview with Sita Brahmachari

Then and Now - a reflection by Sita Brahmachari