Questions for Janeen Hayat
How did you first come up with the idea for Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, and how long from then was it before you saw a finished book?
My Dad was born in India the year before Partition, but he never really talked to my brother and me about how difficult his family’s journey to Karachi was, and how poor it left them. He’d keep his stories to fun things, like how his parents’ village was near a jungle and there would sometimes be tigers in the streets. A few years ago, I guess he started to feel his age, and began revealing these other parts of his childhood. It got me thinking about how little we know about our family – we know what they choose to share.
But, if we laid out all of our family histories, we’d certainly see lots of overlaps – including across the different tribes we separate ourselves into. For example, my cousins, who are devout Pakistani Muslims, moved to London a few years ago, and my husband was in the British Army. If they were at the school gates, would they realise they had anything in common? Probably not. That’s what the story ended up being about – how we’re all more connected than we know.
But that’s a very long answer to your question! The short one is that it took about 11 months from starting the book to winning the Guppy Open Submission, and then another 18 months until it was published.
You talk about working with Golden Egg editors as well as with Bella at Guppy Books, what do you enjoy most about the editorial process?
I love how a good editor will really get to know and love your characters. I definitely felt like Bella knew Evie and Maryam inside out, and would say things like ‘But would Maryam do that?’ She’d be right every time. You start to feel like you’re all members of the same family, which is wonderful. And if she thought something should change, I had full confidence that she was saying it with love, like when my mom suggests that I reduce the number of houseplants in our kitchen. I’ll be really sad to say goodbye to Evie and Maryam when the time comes because I feel like I’ve shared them with Bella and the rest of the Guppy team, and with Rachel Hamilton at Golden Egg too.
This book involved historical research. How much do you enjoy that and how careful do you have to be using it in a novel?
I really loved that bit but it was also the scariest. 1930s India is out of living memory for my family, so I mined my dad and his friends for anything their parents had told them about it and spent lots of time on Google Images looking at maps and photos of particular streets and buildings. When the paranoia that I’d gotten something wrong was starting to break me, I also sent some sections to Professor Rotem Geva, who specialises in Delhi during Partition. She was very kind to read them, considering I was a completely random person.
Is there a scene in Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree that was particularly enjoyable to write, or one that was particularly difficult?
My favourite scenes to write involved Hassan – he’s not really a main character, but I had such a clear idea of what he’s like: sort of a badass, but also a complete nerd. I was in a selective maths programme in school, and I feel like I’m a real dyed-in-the-wool nerd. It was really fun to reanimate my male friends from that time, who were obsessed with both Tupac and calculus.
Your new book, Evie and Maryam’s Little Lies, will be published in August. Is there anything you learned from the process of writing your first book that made the second book easier?
This is going to sound pretty obvious, but I learned to have some idea of what’s going to happen in the book before I start writing. With Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, I had a clear idea of the feelings I wanted the characters to feel and the types of interactions I wanted them to have, but not so much of what the actual plot was going to be. That meant I did LOTS of rewriting to get myself out of plot cul-de-sacs. For Evie and Maryam’s Little Lies, I did an outline at the start, and that helped a whole lot. In truth, I’ll never be a great planner, but a little bit of planning goes a long way.
What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Don’t wait for conditions to be perfect. When you’ve got a job, or kids, or both, it can feel like you don’t have space for anything. But, there will never be the ideal time and place to take your writing seriously. Just make yourself start and try to fit it in where you can: 10 minutes before bed, a half hour on the tube. Don’t worry about whether you’re able to do as much as other people – just keep going.
Q&A with editor Bella Pearson
What do you think it is it about Janeen’s writing that makes it so effective for young readers?
I love how Janeen tunes in so carefully and thoughtfully to characters’ inner worlds, reflecting their feelings at difficult moments with curiosity and kindness. Her empathic and warm storytelling is open, truthful and authentic, to which children respond so well. Janeen deals with some serious historical and social issues in the book, but with a lightness of touch that illuminates complexities without being overwhelming. I’m also often amazed at how Janeen creates such a compulsive narrative often without a huge amount of what people might term ‘action’ – such a skill in a writer, and rare – Elizabeth Strout comes to mind.
What advice would you give debut authors thinking about writing stories that draw on family and family history?
To tell the story in as engaging a way as possible, with authenticity, research and to include as much connection to the current day and the reader’s experience as possible. Looking at what came before and its impact on what’s ahead can be a hugely important tool to help children to see themselves, understand their environment and look forward.
Janeen came to you via the Guppy Open Submission Competition. How important is the competition to you as an independent publisher?
We set up the Open Submission Competition in 2020 when the world had shut down during the pandemic – and it was probably the most important and defining decision I made when establishing Guppy Books. Finding new voices is something I am passionate about – and the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from a huge number of talented writers was proof that there was a need for more openness and encouragement in publishing, to find those stories that perhaps didn’t necessarily fit the current mould. Providing a space for the writers of the future – for original, outstanding entertaining fiction for young people – that’s a hugely important part of our remit as a small children’s indie publisher, and one that we take immensely seriously.
You’ve won the Branford Boase Award twice and been shortlisted five times. What do you think people would say makes you such a good editor?
Oh help. Am I the right person to answer this!? I think (or rather, hope) writers would say that I help them create their best work – stand alongside them perhaps opaquely but always there to help as they express the story they really want to tell in the best possible way.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received as an editor?
That it is not YOUR story – it belongs to the author!
What would you say to any young person thinking about becoming an editor?
It is such a privilege to be involved with writers and their work at an early stage of the creative process – and something I never take for granted. When an author shows you their work and trusts you enough to listen to your response – this is such a special experience and my favourite part of the job. I also love the fact that every editorial project is different – different author, different story, and different way of working – so it is never boring. And there is nothing quite like that feeling of being perhaps the first person to read a manuscript at an early stage that you simply KNOW will be a book of the future!
If you love reading and storytelling, working with people and problem-solving, then this is the perfect job for you.
Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree by Janeet Hayat is published by Guppy Books, 978-1916558410, £7.99 pbk.
Thank you to Janeet Hayat, and to Bella Pearson for answering our questions.
