Author Jasper Fforde

Tickets are now on sale for a Jasper Fforde festival which is taking place in Swindon from May 3 to 5. This is the second time it has happened, and is a gathering of hundreds of Fforde fans from all over the world. For information, visit www.ffordeffiesta.com, and for more information on Jasper himself, see www.jasperfforde.com.

In the meantime, JAINE BLACKMAN enters the author's world

A conversation with Jasper Fforde can take the most interesting - not to say bizarre - turns. You can end up talking about which are the most amusing crustaceans (according to Jasper, lobster and shrimp are funny; crab and langoustine are serious).

Or it could turn to the pioneering women aviators in the golden age of early flight.

Whatever it is, it's likely to be interesting, which is no surprise if you've read his best-selling books.

He's best known for his Thursday Next novels - clever, light-hearted books set in an alternative version of Swindon.

While on the surface the books, which mix the genres of sci-fi and thrillers with a dose of romance, may seem a little silly, there is a serious vein of satire running through them. And they are packed with literary jokes. They have gained him worldwide popularity but success in writing didn't come quickly.

At school he was often reprimanded for daydreaming, and left boarding school in Devon with six O-levels and a measly D grade in Art A-level.

"I daydream now with ink, and make a decent living out of it,'' he said happily.

But it took a long time to get to this point.

After school he did odd jobs and two years of carpentry before landing a job as a "tea boy and photocopier'' with a film company.

He worked in the industry for 19 years, where his varied career included the roles of clapper loader, focus puller and cameraman on films such as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment.

It's clear he enjoyed his work, but what he really wanted to do was write. He wrote five books before he was finally published.

"I think I had 76 rejections, which, when you consider it was over 10 years, shows I wasn't really trying that hard!'' said Jasper, 47. "I kept on writing because I enjoyed it. Once the first two books were rejected, I thought it was possible - even probable - that I would never be published. But it didn't really matter as I was enjoying the process. In fact, it was a tremendous release - since I was not going to be published, it didn't matter what I wrote.

"Crimean war? No problem! Re-engineered dodos? Bring them on! Catching meteorites with pitchers' gloves? Go for it!

"So, in a strange way, the rejection helped. I didn't have to play it safe or have an audience or publisher in mind - I wrote it for myself. Then, when I was finally picked up, they did so because my novels were - how shall we put it? - unusual.

"The weakness - the oddity of my books - had become the strength. "The lesson for would-be writers is clear - write your own material and ignore publishers who tell you what people will read.''

Jasper's heroine is a feisty literary detective. "If Thursday Next existed, I would be in love with her,'' he said when The Eyre Affair was published in 2001. "When I started writing The Eyre Affair I saw myself as Bowden Cable (her partner) but wanting to be Landen Parke-Laine (her true love).

"There is a line in the book that Landen gets to say, but it's really from me: Sometimes I think that Thursday Next was just a character from one of my novels, someone I made up in the image of the woman I wanted to love.' "I'm a sad romantic, really.''

In real life, Jasper lives happily with his partner, Mari Roberts, near Hay-on-Wye, where he moved about eight years ago. There is a real affection for strong women which shines through in his books. Jasper has a passion for aviation and some of his real-life heroines are from the golden age of flight. "Amelia Earheart, Amy Johnson, Bessie Coleman and Beryl Markham - they would never have considered themselves feminist icons, they just did it,'' said Jasper. "They didn't think there was anything they couldn't do just because they were women.'' And they had the single-minded sense of duty, which his heroine Thursday Next does. Even her name is a kind of tribute to his mum, another strong character who celebrated her 80th birthday last year. "It's an archaic way of saying Next Thursday'," said Jasper, whose late father was chief cashier of the Bank of England and whose signature appeared on all banknotes of the period. "My mother uses the term and I borrowed it from her.'' Jasper himself has five children - twin teenage daughters and two sons from his previous relationship, and a baby daughter with Mari, who gave birth earlier this month.

The boys were born at Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon and Jasper knows the area so well because of the 12 years he spent living in Bedwyn, near Marlborough.

The Thursday Next novels are set in Swindon, in a world similar to our own, but with a few crucial differences. Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos. There are in-jokes which Swindonians will recognise instantly but may well cause bemusement elsewhere, such as the Clary-LaMarr travelport, named after comedians Julian Clary and Mark LaMarr, who both have links with the town. The latest novel - First Among Sequels - is the fifth in the series. "I'll be writing about Thursday in Swindon for some time. There will be at least eight books," said Jasper. "I know Swindon quite well, but I still go to places and take reference photos," he said. And he's used lots of Swindon landmarks. On his website are terrific doctored photographs of things like a monorail over the Brunel Centre and the Elgin llamas.

But his fans, who are from all over the world, must find it hard to know where fact stops and fantasy begins when faced with things like the Magic Roundabout. Why did he pick the town to base his novels in? "It's a less well travelled path. I didn't want to set it in London or Bristol or Edinburgh. It's too obvious and boring. Once I'd chosen Swindon, I didn't want to make it the butt of jokes, like people do. Comedians use it as shorthand for a quick laugh. "The Swindon in the books is a dynamic, exciting place where anything can happen.'' n First Among Sequels is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99.

11:57am Thursday 27th March 2008

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