As we continue to celebrate 25 years of the National Literacy Trust, we’re treating our audience to the next exciting installment of our podcast.
In this series, our director Jonathan Douglas speaks with well-known authors and literary figures about all things books, reading and literacy. For this episode, Jonathan sat down with the newly-appointed host of BBC Radio 1 Breakfast, Greg James and his newsreader co-star Chris Smith. Together, the pair have penned children’s titles Kid Normal and Kid Normal and the Rogue Heroes, with a third book on the way in the new year.
Greg and Chris chatted about topics including authors as role models, their illustrator Erica Salcedo, working as co-writers and what inspired them to take up writing.
You can listen to the interview with Greg and Chris by pressing play below, or there are some transcripts of the discussion available to read on our blog. You can also listen and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
‘Historically, people don’t write books together – but why not?... We thought let’s use what we know about writing a comedy or radio script and apply that to a book, and it seems to have worked so far.’
Greg James
‘I think kids really like that authors aren’t frightfully serious people telling them a morally improving tale. Authors are silly and fun friends that have an exciting story to tell them, but one we can all join in with together.’
Chris Smith