On Tuesday, July 31, Year 7 had the privilege of talking to Tristan Bancks via Skype from his home in Byron Bay. He is the well known author of The Fall, Two wolves, the Tom Weekly Series and many more interesting tales which are often inspired from real life experiences! Tristan talked about his writing schedule for each day and what he does as an author. We heard readings from some of his books and he explained some of the ideas behind the plots that he has created. Tristan told us how he gets his inspiration for his Tom Weekly books from true events that happened in is early childhood. It was interesting to find out that he then puts a funny twist on the these true events to create engaging and funny stories in his books.

We were all thrilled to see him and enjoyed his jokes along with his hilarious personality. We experienced some funny “would you rathers?” which were tough to decide. An example of one of these was “Would you rather put a thumb tack under your toe and kick a wall or have paper cuts all over your body and jump into a pool of lemon juice?”. We learnt that Tristan uses these ‘hypotheticals’ to inspire humorous ideas involving his characters.

We all learned how hard authors work to make an excellent and engaging book, writing and rewriting many times over. We were inspired by his motivation and positive attitude. Overall, it was a pleasure as well as an honour to talk with Tristan Bancks. This was an experience we will never forget.

Written by Daniella Louis & Emily Bathis, 7Na English

Watch an excerpt from the Interview with Tristan Bancks