Asha Patel
Writer
Biography
My love for books developed at an early age, which is quite remarkable really, considering I didn’t own many books and I can’t remember being read to by my parents. However, I do remember spending many happy hours reading at Newtown Library on my way home from school.
My motivation to write originally came from a desire to see something with a New Zealand–Indian flavour in the School Journal. As a full-time primary school teacher back in the 1990s, I spent many reading lessons learning about other cultures and noticed the lack of representation of my own.
It wasn’t until 2003, when I’d gone from being a full-time teacher to being a full-time mum, that I plucked up the courage to ring Learning Media. One afternoon, in between changing nappies and reading Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy for the fifth time, I found myself talking to Tricia Glensor, editor of the Part 1 and 2 School Journal. I told her a little about myself and before I knew it, we had set up a meeting to discuss some ideas for articles.
That 15-minute meeting helped enormously in getting my first article published. It gave me the chance to present some ideas and find out what topics Tricia was keen for me to explore. Luckily for me, not many articles had been published with an Indian cultural theme, so I had a good head start in the chase to be published.
Before I began writing, I read through a number of School Journal articles, reviewing their styles and layout. It took me months to come up with a draft for my article “Bells and Butterflies” that I was happy with. Even then, I think I almost completely rewrote it once I had taken the photos. I learnt very quickly that in a photo article, the text and photos have to fit together perfectly. I had a good feeling about that first article when I sent it to Tricia. I was over the moon when it was accepted.
Since then I’ve written “Brothers’ and Sisters’ Day”, an article about the Indian festival of Raksha Bandhan, a Ready to Read book called Diwali, which took almost two years to complete, and two articles, “Hooked on Hockey” and “Wearing a Sari”.
At the beginning of 2007, I decided it was time for me to step outside my comfort zone and try something fictional. I really had no idea where to start, so I decided to complete a sixteen-week online module, Writing for Children, through Whitireia Polytechnic. It is a great course for first-time fiction writers like me. It was a real challenge, but I completed it successfully. A play I wrote as an assignment, “Animal Court”, was accepted for the Part 3 School Journal in 2008.
My advice to authors looking to write for the School Journal would be to plan and research your topics thoroughly before allowing fingers near keyboards. Allow yourself time to mull ideas over in your head. Keep up to date by reading plenty of recently published work. Ask children and teachers to critique your work. And don’t be scared to give it a go.