Podcasts about Blyton

Best known as the co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian is now turning his focus to the future of women's sport. Once overlooked and underfunded, it is now undergoing rapid change. Alexis is today announcing he's bringing his all-female track and field meet series, Athlos, to London. He tells Anita Rani why, and talks about being married to one of the most successful and well known sports stars of all time - Serena Williams.Some social media posts relating to menstruation, menopause, fertility and sexual health are being incorrectly flagged as 'adult content', then removed or their visibility limited - a practice described as 'shadow banning'. Charities and health professionals have signed an open letter to Meta - who own Facebook and Instagram - asking for an explanation for what they call the 'hiding' of information about women's health. Anita speaks to the BBC's Shona McCallum, the CEO of gynaecological charity The Eve Appeal Athena Lamnisos, and Tania who has personally experienced the benefit of this sort of content.The Emma Rice Company's theatre show adaptation of Enid Blyton's 1940s boarding school books, Malory Towers, is touring the UK. It's the brainchild of the company's director, Emma Rice, formerly artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe in London. And it comes in the same year that Blyton's series celebrates its 80th anniversary. Emma joins Anita.Margo Oakley tells Anita about her experience on the current series of the BBC TV show Race Across The World, making it to the final, and the incredible feedback she's had from audiences on her combination of optimism and vulnerability. She talks about grieving the loss of her sister Julia and coming together with her brother-in-law for this mammoth challenge.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Sarah Crawley

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, join the Powerleegirls Host Miko Lee speaks with children's book authors Lorraine Nam, Uma Krishnaswami and Maggie Tokuda-Hall about Library Joy in honor of National School Library Month! To Learn More Lorrraine Nam, illustrator and  author Michael Threet's book: I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy    Uma Krishnaswami Her books: Book Uncle Triology   Maggie Tokuda-Hall Her book: Love in the Library  Every Library Authors Against Book Bans   Show Transcript [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:35] Ayame Keane-Lee: Welcome to tonight's episode of Apex Express Celebrating Library Joy. I'm Ayame Keane-Lee the editor of tonight's show, and part of the PowerLeeGirls bringing you the introduction to tonight's show. Did you know that April is National School Library Month and in just 10 days from April 19th to 25th is National Library Week? The theme for this year's National Library Week is Find Your Joy with Honorary Chair Mychal Threets. The first of three interviews you'll hear my mom, Miko Lee have tonight is with Lorraine Nam the illustrator for the newly released children's book written by that very Mychal Threets called, “I'm So Happy You're Here”. You will then hear Miko speak with Uma Krishnaswami about her children's book “Book Uncle and Me,” and lastly with Maggie Tokuda-Hall about her children's book, “Love in the Library,” and the important work of Authors Against Book Bans. As a library kid and current library worker, I have experienced firsthand the transformative power of library access and the importance of inclusive and diverse storytelling. In and out of schools, libraries are vital to nurturing and uplifting the autonomy and sovereignty of children, which always has and continues to be a liberatory practice. We hope tonight's show will inspire you right into your local library to check out some of the great books mentioned here or to put them on hold. Let's listen in.    [00:02:06] Miko Lee: Welcome, Lorraine Nam, illustrator of amazing  children's books. Welcome to Apex Express.    [00:02:13] Lorraine Nam: I'm excited to be here.    [00:02:16] Miko Lee: I wanna start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:02:24] Lorraine Nam: Who are my people? I would say creative people. People who are interested in having an open mind, and looking at the bright side of things, the beautiful things, people who are curious. The type of legacy that I bring I think is just my parents who are creative and then bringing that, to this new generation.    [00:02:57] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I am, I'm looking at your beautiful face, and behind you is this, find your joy and, and it's in lots of colors on this pink banner and in at the top we see opening up of a library door with Mychal Threets, who's the author of this book, “I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy.” I'm wondering if you can talk about your collaborative process with Mychal Threets.    [00:03:25] Lorraine Nam: The first impression that you have of writer and illustrator for a picture book is that they work really closely together, and that's actually not the case. We work pretty separately, but I was very excited. Mychal wrote the words to this book and they were looking for an illustrator and my agent called me and she asked me if I was interested. I was very excited about the project. I signed up for it and we worked pretty separately. We connected on Instagram, but he pretty much had no art notes, everything was pretty much whatever I was open to. Then we met for the first time and we got our very first copy of the book and we met in New York.    [00:04:10] Miko Lee: And what was that like?    [00:04:12] Lorraine Nam: Um, amazing. He is exactly who he is in his videos.    [00:04:18] Miko Lee: Can you share for our audience who he is and a little bit more about him, just in case folks don't know.   [00:04:24] Lorraine Nam: The book calls him a librarian ambassador. He describes himself as a reader, a lover of librarians or the number one fan of libraries. This is his first book and he's also the host of Reading Rainbow on PBS. We met at the New York Library, public Library for the first time, and he's just so nice, very kind. Honestly, it felt like we already knew each other just because we had been talking through the publisher about the book.   [00:05:02] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. It's so beautifully illustrated and you have a incredibly diverse,, amount of people in the book, both racially but also physically, and I really appreciate how you encapsulated that. I'm just wondering what inspired you to develop this specific imagery for this book?    [00:05:22] Lorraine Nam: Yeah, so one of the only stipulations in the art notes was that he wanted to have a diverse group of people attending the library. People of all ages of all color, all sizes, all disabilities. That seemed like a no brainer to me because I just know the message that he puts into the world. The only difficult part was narrowing down the cast. There's all these different types of people and just trying to figure out who to focus on. I wanted to make sure that you still see the same group of kids over and over. So it felt like you were following the along throughout the day, while still having lots of diversity and lots of different types of people.    [00:06:11] Miko Lee: Had you set what the cover was gonna be at the beginning or did that come after you had already finished the whole book?   [00:06:19] Lorraine Nam: Oh, that came much later. We pretty much had the art for the interior nailed down, and then we were working on concepts for the cover. I knew from Mychal's social media presence that maybe he didn't want to be the poster cover of the book. He wanted to be about the library goers and the people rather than himself. And so I was kind of towing that line of like obviously people wanna see him, it's his first book. They're such huge fans, and so like how much to put Mychal in and how much to showcase him, as well as showcase like all the other people who go to the library.   [00:07:02] Miko Lee: He definitely does have a joyous kind of ebullient vibe to him. I recommend for audience to check out his socials because he has this, you wanna listen to him. He's so inviting and I love the poster behind you because he is saying, like, “welcome, come into the library. This is my world.” And you also made him look so cute. Really looks like a cartoon version of him. So sweet. In your artistic process, I'm wondering what helps you define the style of art you utilize? I'm thinking about the paper cutouts that you did for a tale of two princes. What is it about the work that inspires you to select that type of style?   [00:07:43] Lorraine Nam: I actually had a very winding path to the style that I have today. So the style that I have today is very much layered. It's painted, a lot of it is painted. And then I cut it out and then I glue and collage different elements, and then I scan everything in and enhance certain aspects through Photoshop. But a lot of it started actually in wanting to make a physical book. So it was with book binding and then with book binding, because that's just a technique to produce a product, it was what goes in those pages and that's when I started doing cut paper. So just silhouetted, cut paper. And I was doing that for a long time, just cutting out rice paper to make silhouettes. I wanted to tell more of the story and depict people. So then I started making paper cut [laughs] sets. So I would build —almost like Legos— a whole set of paper buildings and paper people and paper objects that are three dimensional. And then I would photograph them. And then from there, I landed in this more 2D, but playing with still technique and texture and layers.    [00:09:10] Miko Lee: Wow, that's so interesting. Can you share a little bit more about your artistic process? Do you start at a certain time of day? Do you only work at night? Do you have a whole studio set up?   [00:09:20] Lorraine Nam: well, For the book projects because there's such a timeline to 'em and they're very specific. I'll do very loose sketches on Post-it notes. They're readily available and then you can stick two of them next to each other to make a full spread. I use these post-its, and then I would just fold them in half and use that as like very quick pencil drawings. And then if I had something that I liked, I would just go in and pen. But they were still very small. So it was more about looking at silhouettes and composition. And then I would print, it's a very old school technique, but I would print out all the text for the book and cut 'em out. And double sided tape and just stick them on to see where the text should be on the page and where it could fit. I would just do that manually until I had something that I liked a little bit more. Then I would start creating digital, like line drawings.    [00:10:21] Miko Lee: And are you lining this all up on a wall or putting it on the desk?   [00:10:26] Lorraine Nam: Um, so they're in like a notebook.    [00:10:29] Miko Lee: Oh, you put 'em in book format?    [00:10:31] Lorraine Nam: It's all the spread. So it should take about two pages basically. You should be able to look at it and look at it from like an eagle eye perspective of what the entire book will look like and what the flow will be like, and if there's closeups or this is like a far away saying, you get more of the like, setting of the library.   [00:10:52] Miko Lee: And with the font printed out really small so that it's on the bottom of that Post-it note.    [00:10:56] Lorraine Nam: Mm-hmm.    [00:10:57] Miko Lee: Wow, that is so fascinating. And what is it when you're eagle eye-ing, what are you looking for?    [00:11:04] Lorraine Nam: I'm pretending that I'm a kid looking at a book for the first time, with zero context and maybe zero reading level skill and just looking at the pictures and seeing if I can spot the same character and if there is a story that follows along, because this is a library book where it doesn't talk about specific people. I wanted to be able to follow each character in the book and see what their day was like in the library. So when they first came into the library, what they were doing during the day, what friends they made, and then maybe them leaving or, you know, a resolution of some kind, like their parents are checking out symbols at the library.    [00:11:52] Miko Lee: the concept of having the character go throughout the book. Was that in the instruction or was something that you created.   [00:11:59] Lorraine Nam: That was something that I wanted. Because I know looking at picture books, the pictures can also tell a story where, the words, it might not be in the words. So I wanted there to be more of a layered storytelling through image.    [00:12:18] Miko Lee: I appreciate that as a mom. I remember when my girls were little, they would always say, where is that rabbit on the page? Or where is that thing? And so being able to track a character all the way through, is quite delightful. It adds another dimension for the multiple readings. You mentioned before about how you didn't really meet Mychal, the author of the book until the very end, and I guess that's common as an illustrator and you've worked with so many different experts in their fields from, physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson to Skater Nathan Chen. How is their very different fields, how does that impact your art making?    [00:12:57] Lorraine Nam: It's actually the most fun. It's what drew me to illustration in the first place. I love being able to do like a deep dive and a specific subject that I wouldn't necessarily have gravitated towards and do that research. I actually do go to the library. I start the process at the library and I look at all the books about that particular topic, and then see what other people have done. And so working on the book for Neil deGrasse Tyson, it was so much fun looking at different how space is depicted the idea of galaxies and making that tangible and real for kids. And then for Nathan Chen, I was already a fan before I got the project, so it was very easy. But watching the videos, seeing all the different techniques and for his book it was more looking at sports books. Because he's such a unique person in his specific field in figure skating that there weren't very many books on figure skating and most are of a female portrayal. I was looking more at sports and how people show different types of movement, , and show like form. And the more technical aspects that are very, very, very specific and very critical to those things.    [00:14:32] Miko Lee: And how did that manifest into your book?    [00:14:35] Lorraine Nam: Um, a lot of drawings of like, the breakdown of his jumps and trying to figure out can a child do this jump [laughs]? And also doing a lot of research 'cause he's a very private person. His book is not about him, it's not a biography, but it's also loosely based off of him. You know, I have two other siblings. If I had a book based off of me, I want my siblings to be involved and represented in that as well. So I included his family, even though they're not a huge part of the book, his siblings are not like big characters. But they're still represented in there. So he can still be like, oh that's my family. This is based off of my story.   [00:15:32] Miko Lee: So when you're doing these approaches, like including Nathan's family or in the library book, making sure characters go all the way through, is that something you have to check in with the writer about, to see if they're okay? Or is that something that you just do and then you submit and you see if they like it?   [00:15:50] Lorraine Nam: That's something that I do, that I find joy in and see. Usually the first eyes on my sketches are the publisher and the art director. And I actually have no idea what, at what stage they really share the sketches, if it's like at a more finalized stage or if it's an early on one, but I usually just go with my own ideas and see what they think about it.    [00:16:20] Miko Lee: Wow. I didn't know that you could have that much say into it. That's lovely. You talked a little bit about using the library for research. Gosh, I imagine that Neil deGrasse Tyson, there's so much research on it, that must have been a deep dive. I'm wondering what the library meant to you as a child.    [00:16:38] Lorraine Nam: Yeah. I grew up as a big reader. The library for me it was a magical space that I wasn't really sure what it was. My parents, because they grew up in Korea and moved here to the States, there was a big language barrier between us and they're also very not talkative people. They just took us to this place one day and it was our local public library and it was right before closing and we were able to check out as many books as we wanted in whatever type of book that we wanted. I felt like that was magical, that there was no limit to it.    [00:17:19] Miko Lee: My last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:17:22] Lorraine Nam: I'm working on a few books, actually. I'm juggling a few, but they're all very fun and different. I'm doing a book about a boy dreaming of flying, being a pilot. So I think that will be a really fun imaginative book.    [00:17:43] Miko Lee: What is one of your books that you would've liked to read to your younger self?    [00:17:50] Lorraine Nam: Mm, I probably Wei Skates On, the book with Nathan Chen. ‘Cause his story is about overcoming obstacles and being disappointed. And just feeling frustrated and upset. And I feel like that's an important lesson even in adulthood. It's not really resolved through words. It's more of like the, everyone is there for him, his family is there for him, and they all just want him to enjoy what he's doing and to not care about winning or losing.    [00:18:33] Miko Lee: Lorraine Nam, thank you so much for chatting with us about your work and about the library as a magical place, appreciate talking with you.    [00:18:42] Lorraine Nam: Thank you so much. I had so much fun talking with you.   [00:18:45] Miko Lee: Welcome, amazing award-winning children's book author Uma Krishnaswami, I'm so happy to have you here on Apex Express.   [00:18:54] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, it's my pleasure to be here.    [00:18:57] Miko Lee: I wanted to start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:19:05] Uma Krishnaswami: What a wonderful question. Who are my people? My people are children who are, my ideal readership is the eight to 12-year-old group. I write for children. I'm not particularly thinking about audience when I begin writing. But at some point I want my readership to feel validated, whether they recognize themselves as being in my stories or my stories are offering them a window into a world that they are not immediately familiar with. So I would say those are my people.    [00:19:45] Miko Lee: And what is the legacy that you carry with you?    [00:19:48] Uma Krishnaswami: I grew up in India. The year that I was born India had been independent for all of nine years. So I carry very much that colonial legacy. I also am an immigrant to two countries, early in my adulthood to the United States and about 12 years ago to Canada. So my legacy is one of moving and finding new roots, finding community. Those are the things that I try to carry forward in my stories. When I began writing, I lived in the US and I started writing when my son was born. So there I was with a little brown baby and I went looking for books that would represent him and I didn't find them. And I think that is what made me think in my early thirties that, real life people could write children's books because of course the books I had read as a child were all written by people from England and many of them were dead. I kind of thought you had to be dead and British to be a writer. So yeah, it's complicated, isn't it? All of that works into, what you think of as, as your legacy. Having done this for 30 plus years now.    [00:21:03] Miko Lee: And you've written so many beautiful books. Tell us about a little bit more about that first book.   [00:21:09] Uma Krishnaswami: So the very first book, it was called Stories of the Flood. I realized very quickly that I didn't really know what I was doing. I looked to folk tales and traditional tales as a way to teach me about story. My second book called The Broken Tusk Stories of the Hindu God Ganesha. That is the one that I consider as the book that taught me how to write. I had a wonderful editor [unintelligble] Thorpe at a small press in Connecticut, Linnet Books. She told me to lean into story and to see myself as a storyteller. In a way, every book I've written has taught me how to write.   [00:21:47] Miko Lee: Can you tell us about your favorite book as a kid?    [00:21:52] Uma Krishnaswami: My favorite book as a kid, it would have to be Winnie The Pooh.    [00:21:58] Miko Lee: And what was it about Winnie the Pooh that enamored you?    [00:22:01] Uma Krishnaswami: I came to it very early and aunt had traveled to England and she brought me my copy of winnie the Pooh in the House of Poo Corner. And I read them, sitting in very Indian gardens, sometimes up in trees. I spent lots of time up in trees and I took my own geography and placed it over the geography of the book. , So that for me, the a hundred acre wood had lime trees and banyan trees and possibly mango trees. It didn't occur to me, until much later when I read an Enid Blyton reader. I had my moment of disillusionment with Enid Blyton and that's when it really occurred to me that there was an us and a them in, in some of the storytelling I was consuming.   [00:22:49] Miko Lee: What age was that where you recognized that?    [00:22:51] Uma Krishnaswami: My post-colonial moment?    [00:22:53] Miko Lee: Yes.    [00:22:54] Uma Krishnaswami: I might have been a 11.    [00:22:56] Miko Lee: Oh, wow. And were you still living in India at that time?    [00:22:59] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah. 11 was a very formative year for me. My grandfather passed away, so it sort of brought mortality , into the framework for me. Also that was my year of disillusionment with Blyton. 'cause I read The , river of Adventure. And the villain in it had my name. He was called. Uma, Raya or Raya Uma or something like that. And yeah, I was just shocked. Just totally shocked. It was pure coincidence, I'm sure. She probably just, pulled the name out of the air and plunked it in. But. I began to notice that he was described as dark skinned and he was described as cunning. All this language that had slid right past me before began to be apparent. So, yeah,    [00:23:47] Miko Lee: I love that. That is so amazing. This name, like what? That's my name as the villain.    [00:23:53] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm the Bad Guy. No, I'm not.    [00:23:56] Miko Lee: And all of your books are such a wonderful clap back to that because you have a multitude of characters and so many different worlds. Initially reached out to you because I started reading book Uncle this trilogy of books that are so lovely. Can you first share a little bit about what the Book Uncle's Trilogy is about.    [00:24:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Okay, so it didn't start out as a trilogy. It didn't even start out as a book. It started out as a short story and then it didn't quite fit. It wasn't a picture book. It seemed to have more layers than that, so it kind of grew. But what started Book Uncle and Me was I was visiting my parents in India. At the time, and I was on this very busy urban street and there was this kid sitting on this on the, on the sidewalk. Um, it was kind of a broken brick sidewalk, and she was sitting cross-legged right in the middle and she was reading book and she was just oblivious to the crowd going around her and the. Buses on the road and there were, you know, random goats and dogs running around and she just was ignoring everything and she was absorbed in her book. And I remembered that I had been that kind of reader as a child. There was an election going on at the time as well, and I thought, I wonder what would happen if I put those two things together. And that is how Book Uncle came to be.    [00:25:14] Miko Lee: And then there was just, you wanted to live in those characters more, so you ended up writing additional books?    [00:25:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Hmm and that's a very good question. And actually no, I didn't, I thought I was done. I wrote Book Uncle and Me back in, I'm say 2009, 2010, something like that. I probably started it in 2010. Um, it got published originally in India in 2012, I believe. And then it was picked up by Ground Wood in Canada and published in Canada and the US so North American edition in 2016. And I thought, you know, I'm done. I'm writing other things. And then come the pandemic and we're all in lockdown. And like a lot of writers, I was doing, um, many, many, virtual. Presentations and programs. Um, and I did something through the North Vancouver Public Library and, there were kids zooming in from, you know, some from home, some from their bubbles, some from classrooms, whatever. And we were talking about book uncle and one of the kids, I think in third grade maybe, she said, Are you gonna write a sequel? And I am just joshing, right? I am. I said, yeah, should I? And they're all going, yeah, you should. And you should write three because you've got three characters you should give them each a [story]. And I'm like, all right guys i'll think about it. I absolutely will but not really taking it seriously. And then as often happens. the session ended and, you know, there we were all in lockdown going nowhere. And I thought maybe, maybe there's something there. Maybe I could return to that. And in a way I was kind of intrigued because I hadn't, had never thought about a trilogy and I was interested in how that would play out. Um, and it was kind of a writing challenge to myself, but honestly, once I started writing Birds on the Brain, which was book two it just kind of, I hesitate to say wrote itself 'cause I, that just seems, you know, so kind of woo woo. But, um, it did, it did. Uh, the, the kid came in and she took over and then a bird flew onto the rooftop and there I was on my way. So that's the story of, of how that that happened. In retrospect, I'm really sorry I didn't ask that child's name because I would've absolutely loved to have acknowledged her in the book. But thank you child from North Vancouver, whoever you are.    [00:27:40] Miko Lee: That is so amazing. That's by request, by audience request. You fulfilled this goal of a trilogy and and I I love that they even said, not just a sequel, but a trilogy.    [00:27:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Oh, they were. Yeah. They had it. I mean, they had, then they, they figured it out, which was really lovely.    [00:27:58] Miko Lee: And those, that trilogy is really geared, as you were saying to the second and third grade audience and I So many of your books are written around kids that can make a difference. What is it about that age that appeals to you and that motivation to show them how they can change the world?    [00:28:16] Uma Krishnaswami: I think they have this really, strong sense of what's fair. It's the age at which, you know, you start pushing back against what you see as small unfairnesses in your life. Parental restrictions quite often, or older siblings. You're pushing back. You're doing a little bit of finding who you are. And I think that uh, you begin to get a sense of awareness of the big world outside your small circle. And I think also one of the things that drives me, with writing to this age is that, I feel that it is so unfair that grownups, the adult world, has created so much injustice. And we just kind of expect the next generation to step up and step into it and, and do the best they can. and it just, it doesn't seem right not to at least give them the wherewithal to think about that. And they do, they have children have voices and their voices matter. As we found out with, the climate strikes. I mean it really was young people who brought those messages out into the world and forced us to think about them and talk about them. So, I think that we owe children that.    [00:29:34] Miko Lee: So which of your books would you want to read to the second or third grade Uma?   [00:29:43] Uma Krishnaswami: [Laughs] Maybe Book Uncle and Me. Because I think there's a lot of second and third grade Uma in that book. I was a compulsive reader like Yasmin. I would've absolutely read a book every day for the rest of my life if I'd had that many books available to me. I didn't. So I read the ones I had over and over again. I lived in an imaginary world, quite a bit of the time.   [00:30:06] Miko Lee: Speaking of having access to lots of books, I'm wondering what your relationship was like to libraries, both as a child and then now.    [00:30:15] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm a proud and inveterate library goer. I put holds on things. I go browse on shelves. I download eBooks and audio books. I always have a pending list. I'm very, very grateful for libraries and also for librarians whom many of whom I have come to know over my life and am immensely grateful for. I did not have access to libraries much as a child. We didn't have a public library system that was free and available and open to everybody. There were the kind of unofficial lending library types that I feature in Book Uncle and Me. There are sadly fewer of them now, but you still find them on street corners in India. I remember taking a book and giving one and then getting one back in return. That was, that was part of my life in some of the places we lived.   [00:31:07] Miko Lee: Did you know an actual book uncle?   [00:31:10] Uma Krishnaswami: I didn't actually pay much attention, to the people who handed those books out. I was much more, focused on the books I was getting. There are characters who I've seen who have run these things. I once had somebody email me and say, I'm a book uncle. This is what I do. So that was really nice.    [00:31:31] Miko Lee: That's sweet. I wanna roll back and talk a little bit more about your artistic process. I'm wondering if you, as a writer, as illustrator, you can sometimes be in your own world, and I'm wondering what your process is.   [00:31:43] Uma Krishnaswami: My place is right here. This is my office room, and I'm standing at a treadmill desk, and usually what I will do, is when I'm writing, I will turn that on very, very slowly. I usually start out at the idea stage with a notebook and a pen. I have fountain pens with very varied colors of ink, and I use those always to write my initial notes and questions about a new story idea. I don't go to the computer and the keyboard until the idea has started showing up quite a few times. In, perhaps in a few iterations, almost as if I'm actually pushing it away at first, you know, saying, don't scratch up my window until you are developed a little bit more. I'm not going to, indulge, the initial shallowness that usually the first idea is often not what it's gonna end up being. I question that, and sometimes this is gonna sound really crazy, but, if I write those questions many times over in different colored inks, the answers begin to break out in clumps. Once I've begun to think, okay, well maybe I, I know what I could do with this. That's when I open up a file.    [00:32:56] Miko Lee: Ooh share a little bit more about the different colored inks. How does that work?    [00:33:00] Uma Krishnaswami: Um, right over there, there's a whole row of inks, and right over here is a fountain pen, and I have several of them. I change the ink colors, and when I get stuck with something, it really does help to write those questions to myself, in a journal notebook. I have a terrible handwriting, so I used to really worry about when people gave me nice notebooks. Little empty notebooks with beautiful glossy pages. I used to think, God, my writing is so awful. I feel like I'm desecrating this beautiful book. I've gotten over that and it's actually really helpful to physically write that thought for me is very, very useful.   [00:33:39] Miko Lee: And when you see the different colors, is it like words that stand out to you, that you piece together? Yeah.    [00:33:44] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or sometimes I'll write something, in a paragraph, and then I'll break it up and write it in a lineated way, maybe in a different color. You just start seeing things differently when you try different ways of thinking about the same thing. It's all a trick to get the kind of managerial editorial mind out of the way. You need her later, but I don't need her when I'm trying to shape something.    [00:34:13] Miko Lee: The, for the creative process. Mm-hmm. The multiple colors just helps    [00:34:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Right.    [00:34:16] Miko Lee: Pull you into that.    [00:34:17] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. It just loosens, it loosens my mind up so I don't feel so focused on the objective. I often tell myself, I think Linda Sue Park used to say this. You don't have to write a whole novel. You just write a scene. And so that's what I tell myself, I'm a sceneist. I'm not a novelist. I'm just a sceneist. I write one scene. And that's all I need to write. Then I will write another one and so forth.    [00:34:38] Miko Lee: And do you use sticky notes or something to keep those scenes separately or    [00:34:42] Uma Krishnaswami: just all kinds of things? I use sticky notes. I use little boards on which I draw plot lines, and then I write, notes to myself. I use the journal notebooks. I've started using Scrivener and I actually have found that helpful but not until I've got something, in enough shape to plug things in.   [00:35:01] Miko Lee: Oh, I love hearing about artistic process. That's so fascinating. I appreciate you and you're showing your beautiful pen and everything. It's so great.    [00:35:08] Uma Krishnaswami: It's messy, right? One of the things I've learned is to lean into the messiness and not try to organize things too fast, too early.    [00:35:16] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm. Giving yourself the time for the creative juices to flow.    [00:35:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. Yeah.    [00:35:21] Miko Lee: So my last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:35:25] Uma Krishnaswami: I've actually just got done with edits on a picture book, which is going to be called Mango Sun. And then I'm working on another picture book. That's just gone to my agent. It's got to do with wildlife rescue and conservation in the Himalayas. It's an Indian setting, but a very different setting from Mango Sun.   [00:35:44] Miko Lee: And most of the ideas from your books are just coming from your imagination or something you read or where are you pulling from to get your inspiration?    [00:35:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. I have a picture book that came out of a trip that we took to Galapagos and will it ever take form? I don't know, it's about the rewilding of an island , and how when you bring one species back, the other one follows. Some of it's from my childhood. I have two picture books that came out of a memory of planting a mango seed and watching it grow.   [00:36:21] Miko Lee: Sounds lovely. Two of my favorite things, mango and Sun [laughs], appreciate you joining us and sharing about your artistic process and your amazing book. And I'll put a link to your website in our show notes. And thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about Book Uncle and your work.    [00:36:37] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, thank you so much. It's really a delight.    [00:36:41] Miko Lee: Welcome, Maggie Tokuda Hall to Apex Express.   [00:36:45] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you so much for having me.   [00:36:47] Miko Lee: I'm so happy to have you talking about, your wonderful book, love in the Library. But first I wanna, ask you a question I ask my guest, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:37:01] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Oh man. I feel like I have so many tribes that I identify with in different ways. , Gosh, who are my people? I mean, generally speaking, angry queer teenage girls very much my people. Tired Jewish aunties also my people. Exhausted Asian mothers also my people, [laughs] librarians and book people are my people. I, I, I don't know. I feel like I have so many people that I feel an affinity toward and an affection for, and kinship with.    [00:37:38] Miko Lee: I like you naming all of those because we're multifaceted people and there's many different things that make up who we are. Yeah. And what is the legacy that you carry with you from all these tribes you're a part of?   [00:37:50] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: From my mother, I carry a legacy of honoring the truth, like really believing that children are owed the truth and that part of being an adult is being courageous enough to tell it. but I also come from like a vibrant family of Jewish storytellers and I feel like I have that, that I carry with me as well.   [00:38:17] Miko Lee: Thank you. So you've written the book Love in the Library about Tamma, a woman who works at a library in the Minidoka concentration camp during World War ii.    [00:38:28] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Mm-hmm.    [00:38:28] Miko Lee: And she meets George and falls in love. Can you tell me about how you very first heard this true love story of your grandparents?   [00:38:40] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I can't actually, I don't remember the first time I heard this story. It is a story that I've just always known. like for me it's very much a fabric of how I came to understand the world and my place in it. Like sky is blue, grandma and grandpa met in a prison camp, you know, normal stuff. And so, um,    [00:39:00] Miko Lee: so it's just part of the family lore?   [00:39:03] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Like, it's not something my mother was ever shy about telling us. And I truly do not remember the first time she talked to me about it because I remember being very small and already feeling like I knew that story.    [00:39:15] Miko Lee: Okay. Then how did you decide to turn it into a children's book?    [00:39:19] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah, so, in 2017 when President Trump took office for the first time, in his very first executive order was to sign the travel or Muslim ban where he was banning people from Muslim majority countries from coming to the United States. It was clear immediately that he was gonna be using his time and power to enact a white supremacist agenda. I knew I needed to do all the things that we're supposed to do. Like I called my representatives and I wrote my postcards and I marched and I did all those things. But I really did try to audit what I had to offer, particularly children in that moment. That was unique to me. And I realized I had this beautiful story in my own family, not just about the cruelty of those sorts of policies, but also the resilience and power of the people who they target.    [00:40:05] Miko Lee: Ooh. Fired up the, that truth teller part of you just became ready to go.    [00:40:11] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah.    [00:40:11] Miko Lee: Um, speaking of the impact of politics and what's going on and how that relates to books, I know that in April, 2023, Scholastic wanted to include love in the library in a collection around AANHPI folks, but they wanted to edit your amazingly fierce author's note. Can you share with our audience what happened?   [00:40:34] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, first of all, thank you for calling it amazingly fierce. In my author's note, I talk about how what happened to my grandparents wasn't an isolated moment in American history and that it was racist, which I think is a, a reflection of a very basic understanding of that history. It, it's not, a creative extrapolation and. Scholastic offered to license the book, but my licensing offer came with a caveat, which was that I had to remove that entire paragraph. Um, and I had to remove the word racism from the text altogether. And so I decided to say no and say no publicly. And for about three months, my full-time job was talking about Scholastic, but also about our obligation to tell children, American history, honestly.   [00:41:19] Miko Lee: And they wanted you to get word of the word racist. Did they say why?    [00:41:24] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes, they basically said, the language is too strong and we fear that some teachers won't bring it in for fear of this political climate, which is the nice way of saying like, we have to sell into places where book bans are happening and we think that this language is too incendiary for people who would ban books, which to me was always really, Unsatisfactory logic, because books about Japanese American incarceration are banned all the time and they don't use as strident of language as I use in that author's note. baseball saved us, gets banned. They called us, the enemy gets banned. This story is already considered dangerous by the people who would ban books, so they were trying to hold a center that just doesn't exist.   [00:42:04] Miko Lee: And so what did you end up doing?    [00:42:07] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I said no and said no publicly, just with like, sort of the hope of, sparking some intra community conversation among kid lit creators about what sort of edits are appropriate to offer people. I would, I still posit, that that's a completely inappropriate edit and that's about sanding down people of color's, history and perspective to cater to a white audience. And I was unwilling to do it. and Scholastic initially released like a very, incomplete apology. And then when they received a lot of pushback about that, they offered a much more full apology. They offered to meet with me and my publisher, the CEO of Scholastic and the head of their education divisions, which is the division that made me this offer. And then they also had me work with a restorative justice consultant, for like a year to try to figure out what they could do better. But what I said to them at the end of that time that I told them, I was extremely transparent that I would be talking about this publicly. So I don't feel bad saying exactly what I said to them here is, I think the exact same thing would've happened. It just would've happened more politely.    [00:43:17] Miko Lee: Wow.    [00:43:18] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I don't think that they actually reexamined what their role is as a publisher of Books for Children under Unconsolidated authoritarianism. They just figured out how to ask people to make racist edits more, more, uh, gently.    [00:43:33] Miko Lee: And you worked with them for one year with an RJ consultant.   [00:43:36] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, like, not every day, but we had, you know, meetings over the months. And she was a smart lady. Like I don't think that she, you know, did nothing. I think she was trying her best, but I think that, you know, big institutions are very slow to institute cultural change and that that on the one hand has to happen from the top down, but also can't happen from the top down.   [00:43:56] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:43:56] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: And so I genuinely believe that there CEO was trying his hardest to, to make a meaningful change, but without them really stopping and examining and questioning what their own role in this moment is in a critical way. I don't think that they are going to be able to have answered what I would've required for them to, for me to then accept their licensing offer. ‘Cause they made it again.    [00:44:25] Miko Lee: So at the end of the one year long, they made the licensing offer to you again?    [00:44:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. I think just to be kind, just as like a gesture of like, listen, we know we messed up. We'd love to license your book and I still said no because I don't think that they made meaningful enough change.   [00:44:40] Miko Lee: Hmm. Wow. I love this. What did you learn from this experience?    [00:44:47] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: That it is very unusual for people to blow the whistle within publishing, even when the examples are egregious.    [00:44:54] Miko Lee: Tell me about your connection with Authors Against Book Bans. Did that come out of this experience with Scholastic, or were you involved actively involved in this prior to that?    [00:45:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: No, it absolutely came as a result of my experience with Scholastic. Authors against Book Bans is an organization that I'm currently the president of. We're over 5,000 book creators across the country who are united under a single point of view, which is that the government shouldn't be allowed to tell us what to read. That's what we believe and that's what we fight for. And I got involved in founding the group along with specifically David Levithan, who's a really wonderful young adult and middle grade author, who had put together most of this group before I even came on board. Cause we realized that authors needed a central place to fight. There was no one organizing specifically us. And so Authors Against Book Bans was born out of necessity and, the dearth of a place that existed for us. Everyone would call on us to come speak, but it was extremely ad hoc. We weren't making any kind of unified movement, even though we all so passionately agree that, you know, book bans are anti-American and in violation of our First Amendment rights. And, you know, the freedom to read is a necessary freedom for a free and democratic society. and the reason I'd reached out to David initially was because I was hoping to put together something like Authors Against Book Bans, but just by myself, which is, maybe a testament more to my own personality [laughs] problems than anything else, but I was like, I'll just figure it out. And he was like, you know, I'm actually assembling a group that's trying to do this. Would you like to be a part of it? And that's how I came aboard. But I had gotten interested in it because as a result of the Scholastic fiasco, I was invited to give the keynote speech at the Idaho Library Association in 2023. I gave my little speech that I'd been giving a lot then, um, about how we have an obligation to tell American history honestly. And, people were like, the reaction was so emotional to it and so profound and like, I thought it was a good speech. I'm proud of the speech, but like it, something else was going on and I could feel it. And I started talking to the people who were there and when these librarians started telling me what they had gone through, just for making books like mine available to children, stalking, harassment, death threats. One of them had been followed home, like really frightening, scary things happening to them on like, in some cases a daily basis. I realized like I was gonna be a part of this fight. That was that. I wasn't gonna let them fight alone. And so, you know, in, in my advocacy work now, Idaho still holds like a very precious place in my heart because I think that it's a very forgotten state. When we think about places that need help, when we think about places that have been gerrymandered, when we think about places where there are so many good people who are disenfranchised and unable to affect meaningful change in their state level, governments. That have just been absolutely run roughshod over by Christian nationalists. We should be thinking about Idaho. They have, I think, like the highest neo-Nazi population in the United States. so it's a very direct line between my grandparents being incarcerated to the activism that I do now. And it wouldn't have happened without Scholastic's offensive offer.   [00:48:22] Miko Lee: I did not realize that librarians were personally being assaulted or attacked or followed. For books.    [00:48:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: You should watch, the librarian's documentary that's now streaming on PBS. Okay. Um, it's common across the country. Amanda Jones, who's an Authors Against Book Bans member no big deal, is a librarian in Louisiana that can't go grocery shopping in her own hometown anymore for fear for her own safety because she has taken a stand to like refuse to remove lgbtq plus books from her school library shelves. It's really dire. And I think people understand objectively that book bans are a problem in our country. I do not think that they understand how violent that this fight is. It's a really dark and hard time to be a librarian. So if you're a person who supports libraries, you should be thanking your librarians and letting them know one-on-one and in person face-to-face that you appreciate the work that they do, because there are people who are making their lives really difficult.    [00:49:25] Miko Lee: Can you talk about what the library meant to you as a child?   [00:49:30] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, honestly it was like a part-time babysitter. You're a kid, there's a library. Entertain yourself, you figure it out. I think the first time I really felt like a sense of belonging in the library was in middle school. We moved from LA to Northern California and I had to start a new school in seventh grade. I didn't really know anyone and it was embarrassing to not have people to eat lunch with and things like that. So I would eat lunch in the library. And the librarian was really kind about it. Like she never called attention to it. She never embarrassed me about it. She would let me sneakily eat in there, even though there was a very specific rule that you weren't allowed to eat in the library. she put, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles on an end cap once, and that's how I found them and ended up reading the entire series and that was really when I became a fantasy reader and you know, my debut novel was a fantasy novel. I still feel very much like a fantasy reader kind of at heart, and that started there. I mean, we never know when libraries are going to save a kid's life.    [00:50:39] Miko Lee: Can we go back to how you ended up writing this book about your grandparents' experience? Sure. And what was the first spark for you to say, I wanna turn this into something. It's a family lore, but I want more people to know about it.   [00:50:54] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, the Trump administration thing,    [00:50:56] Miko Lee: it was truly that. You said it was    [00:50:57] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Trump was it    [00:50:58] Miko Lee: Trump got elected. People should know this happened.    [00:51:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. What do you have to tell children in this moment If they're Muslim, they're scared, and if they're not, they need a way to understand what it means to feel afraid. Both of those things need to happen at the same time of like, you have to offer comfort to the children of the marginalized. You have to offer perspective to the children who have the privilege not to feel that fear. And so I have this story and what I love about this story is. I know that children are capable of holding the complexity of this story is both very romantic and very sweet, and also the circumstances it happened under were completely unfair. That's the kind of logic children are able to hold, and they should be given the opportunity to hold that kind of complexity because it'll serve them for the rest of their life because most of most situations we confront are complex.   [00:51:57] Miko Lee: And how were you able to eke out more details of that story? Did you do family interviews or was it more from your imagination?    [00:52:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: My mother is a journalist and she kept my grandmother's journals from the time she was in Minidoka. So some of it comes from my grandmother's journals. Some of it comes from working with my mother to make sure that it felt accurate, tonally and factually. ‘Cause she was not gonna let me publish a book that was nonsense. I always say it's Truman Capote true. ‘Cause the situation, the sensory details, all that stuff real, but the dialogue is made up. The dialogue is art. The dialogue is a way for children to understand how they might've been feeling. They never had succinct, quick conversations like this about their humanity and how they felt about each other. It was a long courting process, and so, you know. That part is made up for children,    [00:52:49] Miko Lee: but you, but you did include actual quotes from her journal too, right?    [00:52:53] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. The book closes with her words, not mine.    [00:52:57] Miko Lee: Can you give us those final words?    [00:53:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: The miracle is in us as long as we believe in beauty, in change, in hope. Which are words she wrote while she was imprisoned in Minidoka.    [00:53:11] Miko Lee: And how does that resonate with you in the time of now?    [00:53:15] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They are words that I desperately cling to in the hope that I can see them become manifest.    [00:53:23] Miko Lee: And what are you working on now?   [00:53:26] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Making Authors Against Book Bans as operational as possible.    [00:53:31] Miko Lee: And what does that look like?    [00:53:32] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: In late 2025, we became a nonprofit corporation. We have fiscal sponsorship under EveryLibrary, which is a really wonderful advocacy group that's a combination [501](c)3-(c)4, which means you can make tax deductible donations to them, but also they do overtly political work. And so now we can receive tax deductible, donations and continue to do the overtly political work that we do. We are an unapologetically political organization. We are more than happy to help get people elected who fight for the freedom to read, and we are delighted to show the door to people who would stand in our way of that freedom.   [00:54:09] Miko Lee: And how can people get more involved in your work?    [00:54:13] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They could absolutely go to authorsagainstbookbans.com and make a donation. We need it [laughs]. We are one of the only organizations that receives donations that exists for the sole purpose of fighting book bans. Most every other group in our space have an angle that book bans affect them, and so they fight against them, but that's not their only purview. It is our only purview. So if it is something that you were interested in fighting, then you could make a donation to us. I would suggest signing up to be on the email list from EveryLibrary because they mobilize everybody, not just authors and book creators. And if you are a book creator, self-published, traditionally published, we don't care. Then you should sign up to be a member of Authors Against Book Bans and you'll get calls to action every Friday.   [00:55:07] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing with us about your book and educating us about the work you're doing and appreciate hearing from you. Thank you for joining us.    [00:55:16] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you for having me.   [00:55:28] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night..    The post APEX Express – 4.9.26 – Library Joy appeared first on KPFA.

No LJ this week, but Brett and Tim bring enough camp chaos to sink a cruise ship — which is exactly what they review (yes, that infamous poop cruise). Meanwhile,... LEARN MORE The post Wednesday Breakfast: Angelo Baronessa, Jett Blyton, Hot Water, Poop Cruises & Telenovela Tears appeared first on JOY Breakfast.

Australian singer-songwriter Jett Blyton returns to JOY Breakfast to drop their latest track Needing a Break — a no-spaces banger born out of high school burnout, Sydney collabs, and late-night... LEARN MORE The post Wednesday Breakfast: Jett Blyton – Boy Bands, Breaks & Canberra Beats at Night appeared first on JOY Breakfast.

Brett, Tim, and Nige chat with with rising alt-pop sensation, Jett Blyton. With his new single “44:44” out now and his second EP Double Vision (Vol. 1) set for release... LEARN MORE The post Jett Blyton Interview appeared first on JOY Breakfast.

It's time to put down your copy of The Gruffalo, and join Time Ram as we pit the first Doctor, William Hartnell, against the Silurians/Eocenes/Homo Reptilia/whatever they're called this week in 'The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood'! Also starring harder Barbara, screamin' Susan and "good lord" Ian! Let's send in the grass and determine if violence is, in fact, the way. Features additional Carey Blyton.

Bienvenue dans « Purple Theorie", le podcast qui explore les questions de féminisme à travers la culture, l'histoire et bien plus encore.Chaque chronique nous entraine dans les trajectoires féministes, en abordant des questions culturelles, historiques et philosophiques. Écoutez, partagez et laissez-vous emporter par "Purple Theorie" sur Apple Podcast et Spotify & Co. Préparez-vous à vivre des sensations fortes à chaque épisode !Production: Mikrophonie Emission écrite et réalisée par Marie SuchorskiMusique: Royalty-free music by Slip.stream / https://slip.stream Rejoignez-nous pour une exploration passionnante du féminisme….Instagram : www.instagram.com/purpletheorieSite web : www.purpletheorie.com#purpletheorie #podcast #féminisme #feministe #femme #art #cinema #Mikrophonie Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

On this bumper episode, we meet Josh Tyler from the north-east of England who decided during lockdown to leave his job as a Jaguar main dealer technician to educate himself as a specialist diagnostics for modern classic Jaguars. Having started up on his own as a new business he has quickly grown to a business that is helping keep Jaguars from the 90s and 2000s on the road. Plus, we get tips from Ray Ingman, our ARDS instructor on the perfect lap of Blyton Park in the club's Jaguar XF Sportbrake as we embark upon another awesome TrackSport fixture.

In this second episode of Bad Diaries Podcast, we take another dive into the Bad Diaries universe.We ask each other, Were you always a writer? We talk about our own history and practice of keeping diaries, personal journals and writing notebooks, and how that's changed over time. Tracy curses her long-ago diary-reading boyfriend, and we ponder value, worth and hierarchies of writing.Tracy reads diary entries made on an overseas work trip (seaweed conference in Thessaloniki? Yes, please!), when she was scheduled to fly from Vancouver to Auckland on 11 September 2001.Jenny reads from DiArama – her 1980s diaries that she blogged, pseudonymously, in the 2010s – from April 1983, featuring bands, beer, boys, bad TV, and re-reading Blyton.We talk about the postures we assume, and the voices and ideas we try out, in our diaries. Then we talk about My Mum's Bad Diaries, the podcast in which Jenny reads her own diaries to her 20-something daughter. Season 1 – in 27 episodes, covering 1980 to 1981 – was released in 2022, and Season 2 – starting in 1982 – is out weekly in 2023.Find full show notes for this episode on the Bad Diaries Salon website baddiariessalon.com, or get in touch via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook – we're @baddiariessalon everywhere.Thanks for joining us for Bad Diaries Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us, wherever you get your podcasts.Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation; and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.

Blyton's works can and should be questioned for their implicit prejudices. But we have to remember, “protecting children” from bad influences has been the refrain of almost every prudish censor.

Beep beep! This week we're getting all Blyton as we watch Noddy's Toyland Adventures! Stop motion elves, naughty biscuits and camp French cats combine in a fever-dream of an episode!   Follow us!  @queersgoneby on IG and Twitter @katebutch1 on IG, Twitter and FB  @caitlinrpowell on IG, @caitlinpwll on Twitter Join us at www.patreon.com/queers With thanks to our lovely Patrons: THE JUSTINE TIER:  Danielle Pollard,  Emma,  Caitlin Hill THE TRACY TIER:  Alice Lia Maro, Cole Scahill,  Nothing is certain except Beth and taxes   Find us on our YouTube channel Music: Disco Sting by Kevin MacCleod

Hello and welcome to this week's episode where I'm speaking to Marion Whitehead from the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden in New South Wales, Australia, part of the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. I talk with Marion about one of her areas of speciality; the intersection of plants and human feelings, particularly in the context of 3 books as recommended by Marion; Enid Blyton's ‘The Magic Faraway Tree', Frances Hodgson Burnett's ‘The Secret Garden' and ‘The Overstory' by Richard Powers. Dr Ian Bedford's Bug of the Week: Venom What we cover Enid Blyton's ‘The Magic Faraway Tree': the tree is the central character, but actually seems pretty inanimate. How does the magic faraway tree provoke emotion? Is there a suggestion in Blyton's book that wild plants are more emotionally provocative than cultivated plants? ‘The Secret Garden': the garden heals but it seems to be healing physically as much as emotionally, is this the case? Is the garden responding to individuals' needs?  Do people instinctively find or seek out what they need, emotionally, in a garden? Do we have the language to describe our relationship to plants?  Richard Powers' ‘The Overstory': are plants losing their power to connect with us emotionally, or vice versa, given our detachment from nature?  About Marion Whitehead Marion is Senior Horticulturalist at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden. She has an extensive background in cool climate plant species, with a specific interest in ephemeral and heathland plants. Marion has many horticultural topics of interest from Australian plant history, to managing plant nurseries, to the emotional connection between human and fellow flowers. Links www.bluemountainsbotanicgarden.com The Overstory by Richard Powers  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett  Patreon Membership

Georgina Godwin speaks to Andrew Maunder about his latest book, ‘Enid Blyton: A Literary Life'. It tells the story of one of England's most prolific writers, whose reputation has faced a reckoning since her death in 1968. The book covers the entirety of Blyton's writing career and how her work has lived on afterwards.

She's everyone and their aunt's favourite children's author, but Enid Blyton's books are a cultural minefield. We talk about “goblins”, Moonface, the naughtiest girls and more as we look back at Blyton's writing to see what's aged well and how her work has been tailored in recent years to be politically correct. You can find Supriya Nair at @supriyanair and Deepanjana Pal at @dpanjana on Instagram. This is a Maed In India Production; check us out at www.maedinindia.in.  Theme Music: Easy Wanderlings - Here's to You If you have any books, reading or literature-related questions, please email us at contact@maed.in.  For a list of all the books mentioned in the season so far, check out: https://thelitpickers.fanlink.to/books

Most crossword answers are black-and-white - but today's grid had a slew of them in gray, as part of an intricate theme involving cut classes (listen to Jean's stellar explanation for all the deets). There seemed to be a plethora of people populating the grid, such as 117A, Michael _______ of "Ugly Betty", URIE, 125A, "Spy Kids" actress Hatcher, TERI, 115D, Children's book author Blyton, ENID, 16D, Thompson of "Sorry to Bother You", TESSA, 51D, Muralist Riviera, DIEGO, 94D, Human rights lawyer Clooney, AMAL, and the list goes on and on and on! Fortunately, for those not up on modern(ish) culture, the crosses were genuinely helpful. For that truly gray (um, we mean great) theme, we  give this a 5 squares on the JAMCR scale.

Volven as ensaladas! Porque na primavera hai que coller tipo para o verán. Por iso traemos temas frescos: algo de momias exipcias, astrofísica e fútbol...e a Liga da Xustiza de Snyder. O noso Pablo fálanos dunha das autoras que lle marcou a infancia Enid Blyton. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bocachanclas/message

Today's special guest is Mark Blyton, from Mind Evolution Company based in Nottingham, who is passionate about helping people to transform and move beyond their perceived potential, working specifically in Mindset Performance.Discover Mark's fascinating story and what has led him to work with people using techniques such as time line therapy, hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming. Join us as we practice some live techniques together (which was great fun) and Mark shares some hugely transformative experiences that he has facilitated with his clients, demonstrating how real change is truly possible! Also, learn tools and tips to manage stress and anxiety, particularly helpful during the current climate.Find out more about working with Mark via The Mind Evolution Company Website.Follow Mark and keep in touch on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn._________________________________________________________________________________________Wellbeing Classes & Workshops with Beautifully BalancedSam at Beautifully Balanced is on a mission to help people like you to de-stress, release tension, enjoy movement and find more relaxation though a range of online yoga and zumba classes. Whether you have some experience or are a beginner, I look forward to welcoming you & supporting your wellbeing, Head over to the schedule and find out more details here. Your first class is FREE!Follow The BB Podcast on social:FacebookInstagram

Alternative title: Bring back Fanny! We want Fanny!This week on How Novel! the girls discuss the one place PC culture really has gone too far-revised copies of Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood in which literary simps changed Fanny's name to Frannie!But before they can talk magic trees, A&C have a podcast therapy chat about the American presidential election, children who speak in memes and Alex's mortal enemy-a 39-year-old vitamin salesman who can't stop comparing himself to a wolf. They eventually get around to Blyton, whose 1939 novel hasn't exactly 'aged well.' But not before Alex outs herself as a Pisces who blames old people for not dying fast enough and Claire admits being a communist poetry hater who likes ads on Instagram.Moonface isn't a good name for a character. CoronaVIRUS!

Our hosts visited with Rob Blyton on our Fall Live Drive!

La distopia de V for Vendetta, es uno de los universos más interesantes y lúgubres dentro de la comunidad Geek, esta novela gráfica escrita en 1980 por Alan Moore, tiene su adaptación cinematográfica la cual fue lanzada en cines en el 2005. El increíble guion, sus efectos especiales, su cuidadosa actuación, su exquisita selección de música, magnifica dirección e inteligente producción, entre otras cosas hicieron que esta película se convirtiera en una de las películas más influyentes de la primera década del siglo.   Acompáñanos en este nuevo capítulo de Wookies de La Comarca, donde hablaremos sobre las diferencias entre la novela gráfica y su adaptación fílmica, su excelente producción cinematográfica, el “scoring” de su música y los motivos musicales de sus personajes, el origen de del personaje conocido como “V”, la historia de Guy Fawkes y su impacto dentro de la cultura popular. Síguenos en nuestras redes sociales Facebook - Los Wookies de La Comarca Instagram - @wookiesdelacomarca Youtube - Los Wookies de la Comarca Podbean - https://wookiesdelacomarca.podbean.com/   -REFERENCIAS-   Jorge Orozco: Monterde, Rafael. “V DE VENDETTA: LA MÍSTICA ANARQUISTA COMO CAMINO POLÍTICO”. Página Web: Proyecto SCIO (2018). https://proyectoscio.ucv.es/filosofia-y-cine/el-camino-del-heroe/v-de-vendetta/ Anónimo. “V de Venganza: 10 datos curiosos”. Página Web: No Somos Ñoños (2019). https://nosomosnonos.com/2019/11/05/v-de-venganza-10-datos-curiosos/ Rodrigo Labrador: Odd Quartet. “Cannons in the Orchestra The story of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture”. Página Web: YouTube (2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNWYDACsU8I Mauricio Herrera: EwigeStudentin. “V For Vendetta- G4 Special “Behind The Mask”. Página Web: YouTube (2013). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A35F34gj_mc Rich, Joshua. “Behind the Scenes of “V for Vendetta”. Página Web: Entertainment (2006). https://ew.com/article/2006/02/10/behind-scenes-v-vendetta/ Harington, K., West, D. and Blakeson, J. (2017) Gunpowder [Mini Serie]. UK, BBC One. Moore, Alan. (1982). V for Vendetta. DC Comics. Blyton, Enid. (1939). The Magic Faraway Tree. Newnes. Alejandro Trias: Biographics "Guy Fawkes and the Conspiracy of the Gunpowder"  Página Web: YouTube (2013).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWZIbnkkI9U Tognotti, Chris. “What do Anonymous' Masks Mean?”. Página Web: Bustle (2015). https://www.bustle.com/articles/64933-what-do-anonymous-masks-mean-theyre-steeped-in-historical-and-cultural-meaning Anónimo. “La Biblia de Gutenberg”. Página Web: Biblioteca Digital Mundial (2016). Varios. “Biblia de Gutenberg”. Página Web: Wikipedia (2020). https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblia_de_Gutenberg Varios. “Imprenta”. Página Web: Wikipedia (2020).  https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprenta N/A. “James I of England, 1566-1625”. Página Web: The Jamestown Chronicles (2007). https://www.historyisfun.org/sites/jamestown-chronicles/james_more.html#:~:text=James%20was%20born%20in%201566,British%20royal%20line%20of%20Stuarts Varios. “Jacobo I de Inglaterra y VI de Escocia”. Página Web: Wikipedia (2020). https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_I_de_Inglaterra_y_VI_de_Escocia Serrano, Rafael. “La primera traducción completa de los idiomas originales al español: La Biblia de Casiodoro de Reina: Biblia de Casiodoro de Reina (1569)”. Página Web: Medium (2014). https://medium.com/@raserran/la-primera-traduccion-completa-de-los-idiomas-originales-al-espanol-la-biblia-de-casiodoro-de-reina-889a2e17bb6c#:~:text=La%20primera%20Biblia%20completa%20en,Nuevo%20Testamento%20griego%20al%20espa%C3%B1ol.&text=Casiodoro%20publica%20su%20traducci%C3%B3n%20en%20Basilea%2C%20Suiza%2C%20en%201569 Varios. “Martín Lutero”. Página Web: Wikipedia (2020). https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart%C3%ADn_Lutero  

In this episode, Ben gives his definitive fast food rankings.

In this episode, Ben is joined by Jack Walton to talk about NRL part-time jobs after the season ends, COVID-19 current affairs, and answer your questions.

In this episode Ben talks about Coronavirus, NRL's new promo vid, and answers your questions.

Subscribe to Chewing the Fat with Ben Blyton - NRL SuperCoach Edition to keep up with all things NRL, as well as some handy hints for SuperCoach and tipping in the 2020 season.

In this episode Ben discusses rearranging your bedroom and the arousal that can bring, NRL off-season rankings, MAFS, and answers your questions.

In this episode, Ben discusses the strange parallels between Holden and Rugby in Australia, dodgy news reporting, MAFS, answers your questions, and names his throwback movie and song of the week.

In this episode, Ben calls up John Beith to chat Cricket, Oscars, NRL, and answer your questions. Ben also give his first MAFS power rankings for the year.

In this episode, Ben discusses suspect phone ads, answers your questions, and breaks down the first week of MAFS.  Ben also gives his first round of throwback movie and song of the week.

In this episode, Ben goes all Castaway on us and does a solo podcast. He discusses servo attendees, tries to debunk accents, and answers some listeners questions.

Every Maharashtrian household has one silent yet significant witness in the family, Kalnirnay. This week Trupti is joined by Shakti Salgaokar. She is the Executive Director of Kalnirnay who tells us the story of how this publication came into being the symbol of India's heritage, its editorial process, shares her love for books, films, acting and much more. शक्ति साळगावकर प्रत्येक मराठी घराचा अविभाज्य भाग म्हणजे कालनिर्णय... तारखा असो वा पंचांग, अग्रलेखां पासुन वेग-वेगळ्या पदार्थांच्या रेसिपीज पर्यंत... सगळ्याच गोष्टी एका छोट्याशा कालनिर्णय मध्ये सापडतात! शक्ति याला "आज्जीचं फेसबुक" म्हणते! आज नवीन वर्षाच्या निमित्ताने आपल्याशी गप्पा मारायला आणि कालनिर्णय सारखी महत्त्वाची गोष्ट अस्तित्वात कशी आली? त्यात झालेले बदल, नव-नवीन लेख कसे जोडले जातात? आणि अजुन बरीच गुपीतं आपल्या सांगायला येत आहे शक्ति साळगावकर फक्त गोल-गप्पा विथ तृप्ती खामकर वर. You can follow Trupti Khamkar on Instagram @actortrupti You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

Janice Turner recently wrote a sweet, sensitive article about packing up the contents of her parent’s house. “The experience was almost unbearable,” she began. Among the items passed down from the attic, “my entire childhood,” were a heavy sledge, Twinkle and Jackie annuals, “and a heavy trunk of 60 Enid Blytons.” 60 Enid Blytons - imagine that! Janice Turner aka @victoriapeckham and winner of press interviewer of the year, is nominating Enid Blyton in a programme filled scandal, racism and lovely archive. Blyton was rejected in 2019 from a commemorative coin because of the controversy that continues to swirl around her work .... which include The Famous Five, the Secret Seven, and 24 books about Noddy. The programme includes the biographer Nadia Cohen, the presenter Matthew Parris, and the producer Miles Warde.

Christine Bohan is the deputy editor of TheJournal.ie and the executive producer of Stardust. She joined Alan and guest co-host Cassie Delaney to talk about Enid Blyton. We talked about Blyton’s superhuman output, discussed what, if any, of her work stands up to modern tastes, our childhood reading habits, and much more Follow Christine on twitter @ChristineBohan Alan is @alan_maguire. Juvenalia is his main thing but he does standup sometimes too. Cassie is @CassieLorraine. She co-hosts The Creep Dive and runs Tall Tales Podcasts. Thank you Cassie. Juvenalia is on all of the social medias, if you search for Juvenalia, you'll find us. Juvenalia original artwork by Dee McDonnell This episode was produced by Tall Tales @Tall_Tales_Podcasts. Also we have a Patreon! We have good rewards! It’s patreon.com/juvenalia

In this episode, Claire interviews Karl Duke at the One Education Literacy Conference. Growing up in Barnsley in a working-class family, a wealth of books were not readily available to Karl as a child but he credits his parents for always encouraging him to read. After initially training as an illustrator in the early 90s, Karl has worked in primary education for almost 20 years. In his first position at a rural school in Lincolnshire, he became the Literacy lead then successfully applied for a Literacy Consultant post which he worked in for six years. In this role, Karl delivered national strategy courses in the region including Talk for Writing. He developed materials for visual literacy incorporating film and picture books before returning to school life as an Assistant Head on the Lincolnshire coast. He has now been the Headteacher at Blyton cum Laughton Church of England Primary School for three years. Since being appointed, he and his team have developed a reading-inspired curriculum which he and Claire discuss in detail. KEY TAKEAWAYS · Picture Books Karl makes extensive use of picture books in his school. His belief is that quality visual texts stimulate learning across the curriculum. The reading inspired curriculum that his school are developing ensures that children from all backgrounds have access to quality texts. Picture books are fantastic for reading for pleasure across all key stages and the aim at Karl’s school is to get the children to fall in love with each story. They aspire to ensure that every child by the end of Year 6 leaves their school with a love or continued love of reading. · Sharing the Love Due to the reputation Blyton cum Laughton have developed as a school who love books, they have had over 1,000 books donated to them in just a few months. This has been brilliant for the school particularly when faced with the issue of funding and is something for all schools to consider.   · Ofsted and Curriculum Scrutiny Karl believes that placing reading at the core of the curriculum can only be a positive thing. The importance of books is very apparent at his school and their influence can be seen throughout so he feels they are taking the right path to ensure it is the right curriculum for them. The teachers, parents and children are all on board which keeps them moving in the right direction. · Detail Detectives Karl has come across many children who struggle to find enough to write about and who find it difficult to write in detail. The idea of ‘Detail Detectives’ is to use illustrations from picture books to get children to focus in and look at the details of different parts of a bigger image. He describes the idea of seeing the image as a jigsaw, breaking it into 12 pieces and giving the children 1 piece to study helping them to focus on the details. Children can find it daunting to deal with all of the information in one go. By looking at one piece at a time, they are able to collate a larger number of ideas together instead of trying to process it as a whole. Karl gives copies of images useful for this activity on Twitter and his blog. You can find links to both in the show notes. · CPD Twitter is an excellent source of free CPD and offers a huge wealth of teaching ideas. Karl discusses how most of his inspiration comes online these days. He heartily recommends becoming a regular visitor of book shops to find good quality picture books, especially independent ones where quirky, less well-known texts can be picked up. · Recommendations Karl recommends the author Aaron Becker, particularly his ‘The Journey’ trilogy for imaginative story telling. He also mentions ‘The Arrival’ by Sean Tan for discussing issues around migration and a family starting a new life. BEST MOMENTS “It’s important to us that we can incorporate texts that our relevant to our children.” “As a Headteacher, it is a difficult position to be in. You want the school to move forward quickly for the benefit of all the children within it and there are times where you have to make decisions that are difficult. They might be difficult for the staff but we’re creating a culture of trust and freedom so that teachers have freedom to do their job successfully without the need to monitor, monitor, monitor to death.” “There are children that will always struggle with reading and perhaps not enjoy it but there are things that I don’t like doing and I never will like doing so it’s not about forcing it. It’s from head of leadership down, ensuring that we show reading as a pleasurable experience and if we do that there is more chance of children also picking up on that.” “I have a library in my office where the children can come and select books. We have a few children who do that now. I’d love them all to come and look and choose a book, but it’s going to take time to build that culture. It’s not something that just happens overnight.” “There are many teachers out there who really influence me. I’m a Headteacher and there shouldn’t be any differentiation within that. We’re here for the same reason.” VALUABLE RESOURCES Karl Duke Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarlDuke8 Karl Duke Blog: https://mrdht.wordpress.com/author/mrdht/ The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/   ABOUT THE HOST Claire Riley Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide. Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff. Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.

Ben sits down with Jock Littlewood and Sam Donaldson and talk all things boarding school, blown out undies, and answer your questions.

The members of the Esoteric Literature Club deal with resurfacing memories, and continue to explore the estate of the late Sir Blyton. John: The Keeper Craig: Harold Costley, retired doctor Erin: America Kansas Freedom, cowboy Jack: Jared O'Connell, explorer Jeremy: Jahan Ramzi, psychologist Mara: Doris Foster-Young, cult leader ----- Thanks to all of our supporters at patreon.com/fsfilms for making this possible! Especially our $25+ Donors: * Antitonic * Kat Waterflame * Samantha Bates * Maureen Montee * Drevian Alexander

The members of the Esoteric Literature Club deal with resurfacing memories, and continue to explore the estate of the late Sir Blyton. John: The KeeperCraig: Harold Costley, retired doctorErin: America Kansas Freedom, cowboyJack: Jared O'Connell, explorerJeremy: Jahan Ramzi, psychologistMara: Doris Foster-Young, cult leader -----Thanks to all of our supporters at patreon.com/fsfilms for making this possible!Especially our $25+ Donors:* Antitonic* Kat Waterflame* Samantha Bates* Maureen Montee* Drevian Alexander

The members of the Esoteric Literature Club deal with resurfacing memories, and continue to explore the estate of the late Sir Blyton. John: The Keeper Craig: Harold Costley, retired doctor Erin: America Kansas Freedom, cowboy Jack: Jared O'Connell, explorer Jeremy: Jahan Ramzi, psychologist Mara: Doris Foster-Young, cult leader Thanks to all of our supporters at patreon.com/fsfilms for making this possible! Especially our $25+ Donors: Antitonic Kat Waterflame Samantha Bates Maureen Montee Drevian Alexander

Ben Blyton sits down with Jack Walton and Sam Parkes and they talk a lot of sport. Sam tells us about how he broke his arm in Origin, and Jack smiles a couple times.Subscribe and leave a review to support the podcast!

BBC One’s big autumn thriller serial is The Capture. Telling the story of former soldier Shaun Emery, whose conviction for an unlawful killing during active duty is overturned because of flawed video evidence. The drama delves into the increasing reality of misinformation and fake news. Scriptwriter Ben Chanan talks to Samira about the manipulation of video evidence in our criminal justice system. Venice Film Festival is well underway where the films coming to our screens in the autumn compete for the coveted Golden Lion Prize. Critic Jason Solomon fills us in on the highlights including Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker, the new Polanski film and Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver’s depiction of a divorce in Marriage Story. A Freedom of Information request placed by the Daily Mail has revealed that in 2016 the Royal Mint was considering honouring children’s author Enid Blyton with a commemorative 50 pence coin, but that officials withdrew the author from consideration because "she [Blyton] is known to have been a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer". Literary historian John Mullan and columnist Harriet Hall discuss the resulting furore and consider the ethics of viewing the culture of the past through a contemporary lens. Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn

In this week's episode, I speak with Martine Jellema, another traveler just starting out on her digital nomad journey and we're going to discuss how her early passion for gymnastics inspired a love for languages, which then eventually led her to be able to make a full-time income as a translator and proofreader on the road. Not only does Martine speak six different languages, but she also has a wide variety of interests including photography, architecture, and even taking her drone with her on the road to help with creating travel videos. During the interview, Martine and I discuss how she is adjusting to digital nomad life, what it's like to travel alone as a woman in the Middle East, and her favorite places to visit as someone with a passion for photography. I hope you enjoy my interview with Martine!

In this episode, Ben sits down again with Jack Walton to talk sport, a big weekend with a Melbourne Storm star, and tell two of the greatest yarns you've never heard. 

In the inaugural episode of Chewing the Fat, Ben is joined by Jack Walton and Jock Littlewood as they discuss in depth their recent travels to Queenstown, New Zealand.They also cover the current state of Rugby League and are also joined by up and coming tennis star Adam Walton, who discusses Wimbledon and whether or not Rodger Federer will be knocked off as the GOAT of male tennis.To finish, Ben runs through some quick fire word association with the boys who give there thoughts on their respective home towns and the episode overall.

Ben introduces himself in this introduction podcast, letting listeners know what the plan is for the podcast moving forward.Please subscribe so you can listen to new podcasts when they are released.

Gill Evans is an editorial director at Walker Books. She began her publishing career in 1980 at Heinemann Educational Books before moving on to Reed Children’s Books, where she worked on Blyton, Tintin, Winnie the Pooh, Miffy, the Little Prince, and Babar. She entered the world of digital publishing in 1997 with Ahlberg’s Jolly Postman, one of the earliest CD-ROMs. In 2000 she became Head of Publishing at Random House Children’s Books. She joined Walker Books in 2003 as Editorial Director and Fiction Publisher. Here she talks with Lin Oliver about the role of the editor in the life of a work of art, the changing publishing landscape, “360 degree publishing,” self-publishing and the future of bookselling.Support the show (http://scbwi.org/join-scbwi/)

Subscribe to Uncaring Universe on iTunes - and It massively helps us if you leave a review: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/uncar…id985787268?mt=2 Zen is the author of 'Sorcerer To The Crown' and its sequel 'The True Queen' - inventive takes on Regency fantasy with a commonwealth twist. The True Queen is a bold new addition to the burgeoning series that interrogates the roots and heritage of power – magical or otherwise – and has a lot of fun doing it. We discuss: • What is Blyton-punk/commonwealth fantasy? • How to finish. • The continued impact of the industrial revolution on literature/fantasy • Zen's routine, and why some is always better than none. Follow your host, Danny on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/user/show/20408243-mad-quills Follow Zen on twitter: @zenaldehyde And Danny: @madquills And you can sign up to my newsletter to be notified of each new episode (and a few other gems of storytelling advice) here: tinyletter.com/madquills/ As ever, I'd love to hear feedback or suggestions from you – and every share/review you leave is hugely appreciated and helps us spread the wisdom to those writers who need it most.

Enid Blyton was a part of many childhoods, as the author of such classics as The Enchanted Forest, the Famous Five and the Naughtiest Girl in the School series. However, in recent years she's come under increasing scrutiny for the racism and sexism apparent in many of her stories. This week, Stephanie and Lee discuss school stories, food, women, and all things Blyton. 

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, novelists seemed fascinated by fancy dress. From Defoe to de Maurier, Blyton to Poe, authors used costumed entertainments to drive narratives and to determine the fate of their lead characters. Always exhilarating, very often devastating, the place of fancy dress in literature reveals much about how this sartorial form was perceived by contemporaries. But why was dressing frequently considered malevolent? Were female characters in control, or controlled, by their costumes? And why did fancy dress have such relevance during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Advance warning: After this week’s episode, you’ll want to visit your library or local book shop…   Reading list  Fiction: Eliza Haywood, The Masqueraders: Or, Fatal Curiousity(1720s) Henry Fielding, Tom Jones(1749) Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers(1836) Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death(1842) Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies(1930) Daphne de Maurier, Rebecca(1938) Enid Blyton, The Famous Five in Fancy Dress(1971) Don DeLillo, Underworld(1997)  Non-fiction: Colleen McQuillen, The Modernist Masquerade: Styling Life, Literature, and Costumes in Russia(2013) Suzette Field, A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction(2012) Justine Picardie, My Mother’s Wedding Dress(2005)

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Night in L.A. can be heavy as a medieval cloak or it can sparkle and crackle. It can burn you with its current, protect you or betray you... -- Skin of Tattoos, Christina Hoag Christina Hoag is a journalist, nonfiction author and novelist. Her thrillers are just that -- thrilling rides with young people on the verge of adulthood and already mired in life-and-death situations. Complex characters and interwoven relationships that form, not a net, but a sticky web that traps her protagonists as they fight to escape the consequences of their own dangerous choices. Skin of Tattoos features Mags, just released from prison and trying to escape the gang life that landed him there, while Girl on the Brink is a very different examination of violence and predation.  Christina's nonfiction book, Peace in the Hood, was co-written with Aquil Basheer and digs deep into his program to combat gang violence. Their book is on the syllabi of several university programs, and Basheer himself has been featured in two recent documentaries: License to Operate and The Black Jacket. Plus, I promised to link to a great interview Christina recently did with a fabulous interviewer -- herself! I gave a shout-out to my favorite Golden Age mystery writer, Ngaio Marsh. Artists in Crime is my favorite (and if you don't need to read the books in order, a great place to begin), but Colour Scheme takes place in Christina's native New Zealand. Looking for one with both New Zealand and sheep in the murder? Yup, Ngaio Marsh has that, too. Check out Died in the Wool. Christina, meanwhile, remembers her favorite children's mystery author, and one whose books I also devoured as a kid: British author Enid Blyton. Blyton was prolific; it's hard to go wrong with any of them, but the mystery series are, in particular, The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. There are so many others, I'm not going to try to guide you through them, but I will toss you over to the Enid Blyton Society. Enjoy! To learn more about Christina, check out her website and her Facebook page. And for a great read, turn to any of her books!  -- Laura Transcript of Interview with Christina Hoag Laura Brennan: My guest today is a journalist, a novelist, and a nonfiction author. Christina Hoag’s novels, Skin of Tattoos and Girl on the Brink, both focus on young people caught in life or death situations -- and both are all the more terrifying because those situations are so real, and so frighteningly common. Christina, thank you for joining me. Christina Hoag: Thank you Laura. It's great to be here. LB: Before we talk about your work, I'd love to talk a little bit about your background. You were born in New Zealand? CH: Yes. I was born in New Zealand. I lived in a number of countries, my family moved around a lot -- which is kind of an understatement. But I ended up in the United States when I was 13, in New Jersey to be exact. So I'm sort of a global nomad. LB: I wanted to sneak in here that everything I know about New Zealand I learned from Ngaio Marsh. CH: Oh, great! Great. That's great that you've heard of her and read her. Yes, she's one of New Zealand's literary stars. LB: Oh, she's phenomenal. I love her. CH: Yes. LB: I'm sure New Zealand is more than murders, mind you. CH: Yes. There are a lot of sheep there. LB: A lot of sheep. Okay. That sounds like, actually, a couple of her books. So you grew up all over the world and landed in New Jersey. And then, how did you get into journalism? CH: Mainly because I loved to write. And I won a prize, when I was six years old, in New Zealand, one little prize at school for writing interesting stories. So it's something, I'd always loved to write, I was a voracious reader growing up, reading Enid Blyton and The Famous Five, The Secret Seven mysteries, you know, those were juvenile mysteries written by the British author Enid Blyton. So I always knew I wanted to write stories.

I catch up with Dr Michaela Blyton, who tells us all about the things you can find out from investigating Koala deposits. It's quite a lot! Check out the show notes at https://scienceatthelocal.wordpress.com/podcast/

He’s not a fan favourite, but I really enjoy the music of Carey Blyton. Follow on Twitter: @TMDWP Email the show: min_dw@yahoo.co.uk Please rate and leave a review on iTunes Available in YouTubeHD – http://youtu.be/MhjCgLyRlOI?hd=1

Hey hey hey! Welcome to Episode 119 of the Gather Around Me funcast starring Ben "The Rock" Pobjie and Cam "Gone In 60 Seconds" Smith. Today's topic comes from @phantomdiorama, and it is FLOPPY HATS. Please do a donate at http://www.indiegogo.com/gatheraroundme CIAO!

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of Malory Towers, Enid Blyton's daughter, Gillian Baverstock, shares her memories of growing up with one of the world's best-loved children's authors. Hear about the real-life inspirations behind Blyton's famous characters in this 2006 event. One for all the family.