Between Monks and Monkeys: A Joyful Read

Dear Friends,

Adventures of an English Teacher
in Dharamshala

I'd like to introduce you to Gill Winter, a wonderful New Zealand author who has self-published several books including Between Monks and Monkeys. With great compassion and a charming sense of humor, the work explores Gill’s adventures as an English teacher with Tibet Charity in Dharamshala, India (where the 14th Dalai Lama lives in exile). 

Gill’s resilience and her deep respect for the Tibetan people are inspiring, as is the life-affirming philosophy of this embattled culture. Since reading Between Monks and Monkeys, I find it impossible to swat those pesky flies, preferring instead to usher them out of my house, wave good-bye and wish them well (in English, of course).

Gill's books are available on her website and on Amazon. I'm sure they'll bring joy to your holiday season.

Interview

Gill and I had a fascinating conversation about her books and her writing practice. 

Amanda: You’ve had a lot of interesting experiences (11 years at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, founder of Flying Piglets, and working on the family pig farm). What led you to write about your time at Tibet Charity?

Gill: Living and teaching in Dharamshala was such a stunning experience for me – far more life-changing than I had expected. When I came home, I really wanted to talk about it at length. Alas, there aren’t many people who are prepared to sit down for hours and listen to a returned traveler raving on about their experiences – not in my world, anyway. I had kept a pretty good diary and I like to write, so putting it together as a book seemed an obvious step. It was a way of mulling it all over in my own mind. I really wrote the book for myself. The fact that readers enjoyed it and it actually inspired several other people to volunteer in various places around the world was an added bonus.

Amanda: Your writing practice: do you keep a journal? Do you write to music? In a particular place? Particular time?

Gill: When I was writing the non-fiction books based on diaries and photos I was pretty disciplined and wrote more or less every day, in a quiet place. However, when I started on my first novel “Before the Magic Fades” it all became much less focused. I found the best way for me was to spend a lot of time – months sometimes – thinking about the next aspects of the plot and making notes before getting down to serious writing. This would be hopeless if I had a deadline but, being an indie writer, I don’t need to worry about how long it takes.

Amanda: I’m interested in the interaction between your drawing practice and your writing practice. They certainly complement each other in Between Monks and Monkeys. Any thoughts on how they interact? What functions each serves for your creative process?

Gill: Most of the drawings in the book were done on the spot and I remember the circumstances very clearly. I wish I had kept doing that on my later visits to India, but I didn’t – I got shy about people peering over my shoulder and commenting (even in Hindi or Tibetan which I didn’t understand). I used to take photos instead and work from them. That has advantages and disadvantages. Anyway, I’m now starting to recognise the real value of drawing on the spot. I intend to do it more in the future as a general rule, because it really does spark memories so much more clearly than photos for me.

Amanda: You decided to self-publish this book. In fact, I think you have self-published each of your three books on Tibet. What led you to decide to publish your work independently? What do you see as the advantages & disadvantages of this approach?

Gill: I self-published for several reasons. Firstly, I had no idea about how to go about looking for a publisher. Also, I had heard that many books are rejected, and I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the book having wide enough appeal for a publisher. However, a local printing house, Publish Me, was really approachable and helpful, and their costs were reasonable. Also I had total control over the format, the cover and so on, which I liked. (I did have an editor – a friend who was a writer/editor for medical journals and whose judgment I trusted.)

In terms of self-publishing online I submitted the book to Bookbaby which distributes to a number of online booksellers. I’ve found them very easy to work with.

The disadvantage of self-publishing is that you have to do all your own promotion and marketing, and that’s not something I’m good at or even very interested in, actually.

Amanda: I’m intrigued by your footnote critique of New Zealand refugee policy. The language is so gentle when you point out how few Tibetans in exile have made their way to New Zealand. “It’s interesting to consider…” Has anything changed since this book came out in 2011?

Gill: I didn’t see the point of getting all strident about the lack of support for Tibetan refugees by the NZ government, but I did want people to think about it. As far as I know the government’s position hasn’t changed, and the few Tibetans here have either married Kiwis or come in as workers (including monks).

The problem is that other disasters and mass dislocations of people have happened over the past sixty years and the Tibetans’ problems – which haven’t disappeared – have gone under the radar (globally, not just in NZ) despite the efforts of the Dalai Lama, high-profile advocates like Richard Gere and so on.

Amanda: Is there anything that you left out from the book?

Gill: Not really. I included everything that seemed relevant to my first visit, which really was a voyage of discovery starting from a state of almost total ignorance.

I wrote a sequel, “The Yeti in the Library”, after my second time in Dharamshala. I think it’s a better book than the first one. Among other things it looks more closely into the stories of some individual people. It also follows the tragic rise of self-immolations inside and outside Tibet that was happening in 2012. I ventured out of McLeod Ganj more on my second visit, and became more familiar with various Indians in Dharamshala. Also I was starting to understand a bit more about the problems facing Tibetans in exile. However, one thing that I found intriguing every time I went back (6 teaching stints in all) was that although I always found some answers, there were always more questions. It’s an intriguing place.

Amanda: I enjoyed reading about your departure from the hotel in Delhi. As a gerontologist I got a special kick when you said, “For 2000 rupees I’m happy to be old!” The book closes with your anticipation of new adventures. I wonder whether that’s your fountain of youth?

Gill: That episode summed up a lot about my experience of India! I can’t imagine any desk clerk in NZ offering to “help you because you are old.” (They might do it, but they wouldn’t be so direct about it.)

I was pretty lucky in that in all my time in India I have had very few negative encounters. So, when people say, as they often do, “You’re so brave to go off to India by yourself,” I can honestly say that I don’t feel brave, just interested in carrying on the story, knowing that there will always be something new and interesting there. It’s never dull.

I probably won’t go back, as you have to be reasonably fit to cope with the altitude, the awful roads and the hills, not to mention Covid, and I’m not getting any younger. But I really would love to do it again. (I remind myself sometimes that last time I was in Dharamshala in 2019 the other teacher at Tibet Charity was on crutches and she managed OK, so maybe I’m just being a wimp.)

Amanda: What led you to turn to fiction in your third book? Can you compare and contrast your experiences with non-fiction and fiction?

Gill: It started with the question that so many writers ask themselves: “I wonder if I could write a novel?” I honestly didn’t think I had the imagination to do it. What got me going was the realisation that things weren’t getting any better for the Tibetans, and it’s very unlikely that most of the Tibetans in exile that I know will ever be able to safely return to Tibet.

The novel “Before the Magic Fades” is based very loosely on the invasion and occupation of Tibet, but in a country where there is a magic force that emanates from the land. Tibet used to have quite a mystical reputation, and some people even today believe that some very high lamas have extra-ordinary powers, so that’s where the idea of magic came from. It’s the power that might help to free the fictional land of Beta.

Writing fiction was much more difficult for me than non-fiction. I used a lot of what my Tibetan friends told me about the country and the way they had grown up as a basis, but I also had to think about plot and character development. It grew very slowly in leaps and bounds with long periods of writer’s block in between. However I am pretty happy with the finished story and I’ve had some good feedback on it.

Amanda: What about your next book? Any ideas? Plans? New adventures?

Gill: I’m currently working on a sequel to “Before the Magic Fades.” It’s progressing in much the same way as the first novel did (some great leaps followed by a lot of thought) but I’m OK with that.