It’s not every day you get to meet successful world-known authors and I’m sure the 12th of November was a day that current year 9 pupils won’t be forgetting about in a hurry. Bali Rai , author of several successful books including ‘(un)arranged marriage’ and ‘The Crew’ , gave up his time and came to spend it with the year 9 pupils here at Kingsdown School.

The day started with a talk from Bali Rai and it was quickly established that not only was he just a normal person he was also rather witty and funny. Bali’s talk covered topics in his books such as stereotyping. Bali quickly became liked by the students in the Hall when he told them that he hated the way that all teenagers were treated as yobs and that he knew this was entirely untrue. His talk then turned slightly biographical explaining to the year 9 pupils that he’d grown up in Leicester and that when he was younger he thought all authors had to be rich and posh. Bali then spoke of his inspirations to become an author, namely Sue Townsend. He explained that Sue had lived in the same area as he and he had gone to the same school as her children and that he felt if she could make it then there was no reason why he couldn’t. Upon being asked questions Bali went very into detail instead of giving merely one worded answers.

During lunch time Bali was in the library autographing people’s books and bookmarks.

Later on in the day Bali ran creative writing workshops. One of the main issues that he really pushed was in order to write you need to read. He told 9P EN 1 that there was no successful author in the entire world that didn’t read.

His workshops included how to plan a story and descriptive writing.

The year nine students thoroughly enjoyed the day and would gladly listen to Bali speak again.

By Hannah Smith, Year 9, Kingsdown School