1
00:00:01,160 --> 00:00:04,040
Speaker 1: So would you trust your kid to spend time alone

2
00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,240
Speaker 1: with a hard out punk rock front man covered in

3
00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:09,959
Speaker 1: tattoos all the way down to the wrist, A man that,

4
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:12,760
Speaker 1: when he wasn't on stage himself, was a part of

5
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,240
Speaker 1: a heaving throng of beer and fury at early shows

6
00:00:16,239 --> 00:00:20,639
Speaker 1: from the birthday party, relish, relishing, at being sweated on

7
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:24,319
Speaker 1: by the great Nick Cave. Well, if your kids have

8
00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,840
Speaker 1: ever read The Day that My Bum Went Psycho or

9
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: any of the Treehouse books, your kids absolutely have spent

10
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,480
Speaker 1: time with that man. Andy Griffiths is one of Australia's

11
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:39,440
Speaker 1: most successful children's book courses. He drew on his experience

12
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:42,320
Speaker 1: as a school teacher to really kind of redefine what

13
00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:46,400
Speaker 1: it was that made kids want to read and engage

14
00:00:46,479 --> 00:00:49,000
Speaker 1: with books. He's such an interesting conversation, this one, and

15
00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:51,760
Speaker 1: he's a deep, thinking, delightful man. I know you're going

16
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:54,200
Speaker 1: to love it, but I do need to pay the piper.

17
00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:55,680
Speaker 1: We were back after the break.

18
00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:04,920
Speaker 2: Absolutely everybody is creative. To solve any problem, you consider

19
00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:08,880
Speaker 2: a range of possibilities, and the more you've exercised your imagination,

20
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:13,160
Speaker 2: the greater that range possibilities can be. If you put

21
00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:17,160
Speaker 2: a jar of cookies really high up on a shelf,

22
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,720
Speaker 2: and that person is hungry. They're going to find a

23
00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:25,880
Speaker 2: range of creative ways to get to those cookies. And

24
00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:29,839
Speaker 2: that's what creativity is. It's solving a problem. You can't

25
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:35,560
Speaker 2: get genuine creativity without a genuine problem to solve.

26
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:39,319
Speaker 1: That is best selling children's book author Andy Griffiths. And

27
00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,319
Speaker 1: this is better than yesterday, making it better every episode

28
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:44,440
Speaker 1: since twenty thirteen. Thanks so much for being here, min

29
00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: Angel Shiginsberg. I'm grateful you made it to the show.

30
00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:49,360
Speaker 1: We do have some live gigs on the way. Tickets

31
00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:51,840
Speaker 1: for story Club shows are in the show notes, as

32
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,080
Speaker 1: is the link to get on the substack if you

33
00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:55,880
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with me and read other

34
00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:57,760
Speaker 1: stuff that I write that isn't here or in my

35
00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:01,520
Speaker 1: regular columns anywhere else. Andy griff is here. And now,

36
00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:05,320
Speaker 1: anybody who reads books to their kids knows that some kids'

37
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:10,040
Speaker 1: books are just excellent and some are just ordinary. Now,

38
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:13,040
Speaker 1: what I love about this conversation is that Andy really

39
00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:16,480
Speaker 1: peels back the curtain on what makes kids actually want

40
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:18,920
Speaker 1: to read, not what we think they should read, but

41
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,840
Speaker 1: what gets genuinely excited to keep turning the page and

42
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:26,880
Speaker 1: it's working for Andy because in writing about poohs and

43
00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 1: bums and wheeze, all in the service of getting more

44
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:33,120
Speaker 1: kids to read, Andy has sold millions and millions of books,

45
00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:35,720
Speaker 1: which is no small feet for an Australian author. As

46
00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:39,200
Speaker 1: far as Andy's concerned, sometimes the best stories actually have

47
00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 1: no moral lesson whatsoever. He also in this conversation he's

48
00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:46,640
Speaker 1: got a brilliant take on limiting yourself creatively, which I

49
00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 1: really like. Like trying to tell a story in just

50
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,799
Speaker 1: fifty words, for example, that can actually make your work

51
00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:53,880
Speaker 1: a whole lot better now, even if you don't have

52
00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:56,799
Speaker 1: kids in your life. This conversation really brings a lot

53
00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:01,520
Speaker 1: of insight to what it is to write creatively, childhood development,

54
00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:05,959
Speaker 1: and some stuff about the publishing industry which I think

55
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,079
Speaker 1: really fascinating. It's a conversation about imagination, creativity and why

56
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:12,520
Speaker 1: sometimes the best thing that we can do for our

57
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,120
Speaker 1: kids is to make sure they eat just a little

58
00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:22,480
Speaker 1: bit of dirt. Enjoy this chat with Andy Griffiths. Thanks

59
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:22,919
Speaker 1: for coming.

60
00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 2: Around, man Pleasure.

61
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:28,160
Speaker 1: Some kids' books do try to tackle topics of social

62
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:32,200
Speaker 1: import When a kid's story is right, it's so right,

63
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:35,240
Speaker 1: and sometimes they can just be a bit bit on

64
00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:35,720
Speaker 1: the nose.

65
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:39,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, I think it's great that we have

66
00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:43,640
Speaker 2: books for a very wide cross section of the audience now,

67
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:48,040
Speaker 2: books that were never around, and they definitely have their purpose.

68
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:51,840
Speaker 2: But the books that I loved appear to have no

69
00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:57,680
Speaker 2: purpose whatsoever other than the pure roller coaster thrill of

70
00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:01,760
Speaker 2: a story well told. It's often hard to define a

71
00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:04,839
Speaker 2: message in a book like that, but it doesn't mean

72
00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:08,840
Speaker 2: it's without purpose or without great value. And so that

73
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:11,160
Speaker 2: was always the sort of book I was attracted to

74
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:13,880
Speaker 2: as a kid, and it's the only sort of book

75
00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:16,440
Speaker 2: I'm capable of writing as an adult. If I try

76
00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:20,480
Speaker 2: to write a book that demonstrates the importance of climate

77
00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:23,400
Speaker 2: to us, it comes.

78
00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:23,720
Speaker 1: You know.

79
00:04:23,839 --> 00:04:27,039
Speaker 2: I could do it, but it would be more one

80
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:32,240
Speaker 2: or two dimensional because it's enslave. It's trying to get

81
00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:35,359
Speaker 2: a point across. Whereas a good story you have to

82
00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:40,200
Speaker 2: be open to it going in multiple directions and unexpected

83
00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:45,040
Speaker 2: directions that can surprise you as well as the reader.

84
00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:49,440
Speaker 1: As someone who does this for a job, when did

85
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:52,320
Speaker 1: you realize it could be a job? I'm getting that.

86
00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 1: I mean, you played in bands early on, like being

87
00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:57,960
Speaker 1: an author probably wasn't, was it? Part of the plan.

88
00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:01,479
Speaker 2: It wasn't really even a thing you could conceive of

89
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:05,679
Speaker 2: doing at that point. But yeah, I was in bands.

90
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:07,760
Speaker 2: I loved writing the lyrics and I ended up as

91
00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:09,520
Speaker 2: the front man because I was the one who wrote

92
00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:13,920
Speaker 2: the lyrics. So punk, wasn't it. Yeah, sort of punk, grunge, experimental,

93
00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,280
Speaker 2: anything goes in early eighties Melbourne.

94
00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:20,080
Speaker 1: All right, So in venues that I'm getting in our

95
00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:20,760
Speaker 1: poke rooms.

96
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 2: Seaview Ballroom was the mecca of Melbourne and Prince of

97
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:31,599
Speaker 2: Wales just down the road. So that was just any

98
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:36,200
Speaker 2: person making any sort of noise whatsoever could have an

99
00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:37,400
Speaker 2: appreciative audience.

100
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:39,919
Speaker 1: Now, and this is the part where you tell me

101
00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:41,600
Speaker 1: the story. He had it back at Nick Cavee's house.

102
00:05:42,839 --> 00:05:46,960
Speaker 2: I did meet Nick cave once. I slapped him on

103
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,839
Speaker 2: the back outside the Store Theater after a legendary nineteen

104
00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:54,919
Speaker 2: eighty three birthday party concert, and I was happy to

105
00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:57,400
Speaker 2: be able to do that. Look, I didn't know what

106
00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:02,960
Speaker 2: I'd seen. It was a primal energy, terrifying and exhilarating

107
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:08,200
Speaker 2: in equal measure, and that set a kind of expectators.

108
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 1: Your red right hand, that's what it was. I will

109
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:11,960
Speaker 1: say it is.

110
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,040
Speaker 2: Well, you know, during that gig, he leaned across the

111
00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:20,240
Speaker 2: audience and I had his hand and he screamed in

112
00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:23,600
Speaker 2: my face, and I did think, you know, as an

113
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:28,279
Speaker 2: emerging lead singer myself, this was you know, God passing

114
00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,440
Speaker 2: the torch all right to me. And that's always been

115
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 2: a very special moment until I realized that he's always

116
00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 2: leaning across the audience and always very much touching and

117
00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:44,480
Speaker 2: connecting with the audience. So it wasn't it wasn't special

118
00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:46,279
Speaker 2: to me, but it was a very special moment.

119
00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:49,920
Speaker 1: But I've been to gigs where I grew up in Brisbane,

120
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:52,400
Speaker 1: so no one ever told. And we certainly did have

121
00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 1: the scene that you had in Melbourne. I mean it's

122
00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:58,640
Speaker 1: it's the scene that Tech Deadly and the dumb dumbs

123
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:01,920
Speaker 1: were around, which then became your sea and you know,

124
00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:04,800
Speaker 1: the saints and stuff like persons. The Peak City is

125
00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,000
Speaker 1: a fantastic book. I thought, I recommend it. But I

126
00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:09,600
Speaker 1: was a part of the band scene that came about

127
00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years later when the government changed and you know,

128
00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:14,240
Speaker 1: long hair weren't getting beaten up in the streets so much.

129
00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:17,960
Speaker 1: But I would camp out for tickets. You see a

130
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 1: band that had come from overseas. Nothing shouted me more

131
00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:22,760
Speaker 1: when they didn't look at you or they didn't say

132
00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:25,440
Speaker 1: anything between a gig for a song. Yeah, it's like

133
00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:27,200
Speaker 1: I came here to connect with you. Man.

134
00:07:27,720 --> 00:07:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want to recital, you want you want

135
00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:35,040
Speaker 2: to see the real people in the moment, messing up

136
00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:37,680
Speaker 2: if necessary, That's what you want.

137
00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:41,160
Speaker 1: Those experiences when you're then on stage and you're figuring

138
00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,640
Speaker 1: out what connects with people. Surely that informed the work

139
00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:47,000
Speaker 1: later on when you're trying to connect with the reader.

140
00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Because I wasn't a gifted singer in any sense.

141
00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:54,280
Speaker 1: That's the best part about part music. You didn't have

142
00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: to be You didn't have to mean it.

143
00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:58,360
Speaker 2: You had to mean it, and you had to do something.

144
00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:01,520
Speaker 2: And so I had to ronic stage act, and I

145
00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:05,280
Speaker 2: was teetering on the top of speakers, you know, making

146
00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:07,800
Speaker 2: wonder whether I'd fall off or not, which apparently I

147
00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:11,680
Speaker 2: did many times, but without injury because I was always drunk.

148
00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:15,760
Speaker 2: But yeah, you need to connect with that audience and

149
00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:19,240
Speaker 2: make them feel something has happened. And so when I

150
00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:21,520
Speaker 2: a few years later became in a high school English

151
00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:26,040
Speaker 2: teacher and discovered all these kids completely disconnected from reading,

152
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:29,360
Speaker 2: I was like, it's not an either or choice. You

153
00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,840
Speaker 2: don't have a choice between reading and movies or computer games.

154
00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:35,840
Speaker 2: You have both. They all have something to offer. And

155
00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:39,080
Speaker 2: I made it my personal mission to connect with just

156
00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:43,080
Speaker 2: my class initially to write something that made them go

157
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:46,600
Speaker 2: oh yeah wow. And I think that might have been

158
00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:49,760
Speaker 2: the day my bum went psycho, you know, a little

159
00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:53,200
Speaker 2: just a very short story about my butt jumping off

160
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,319
Speaker 2: my body, running away and causing chaos. And they went,

161
00:08:56,600 --> 00:08:59,000
Speaker 2: can you write about that? And I said, there is

162
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,400
Speaker 2: no limits to it. You can write. There's no limits

163
00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:04,240
Speaker 2: to what you can imagine, you know, Can we write something?

164
00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:07,160
Speaker 2: And yeah, as long as it's not another obvious part

165
00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:09,640
Speaker 2: of your body, that's any other part of your body

166
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,000
Speaker 2: apart from the one I know you want to write about,

167
00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:16,680
Speaker 2: And off they went. And so we had this little

168
00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:20,680
Speaker 2: creative writing thing going in the classroom, and I'd self

169
00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:24,839
Speaker 2: publish their work with a photocopier and staples. And then

170
00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:27,640
Speaker 2: I started self publishing my own work. And just like

171
00:09:27,679 --> 00:09:31,040
Speaker 2: we did in the bands with cassette tapes into the

172
00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:35,439
Speaker 2: record shops, I started putting my little books into bookshops

173
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:38,480
Speaker 2: and record shops because I just thought that's how.

174
00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:38,960
Speaker 1: You do it.

175
00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:42,400
Speaker 2: You know it's punk rock. You don't need a publisher

176
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:44,880
Speaker 2: to say this is great.

177
00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: Sure, it was a time before that when you had

178
00:09:46,920 --> 00:09:49,040
Speaker 1: a little swipey card on the photocopy at work. You

179
00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:51,319
Speaker 1: just there's a couple of reads of paper and toner cartridge.

180
00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:57,000
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, yeah. The Victorian State Education Department was my b.

181
00:09:56,960 --> 00:09:57,760
Speaker 1: One of five in BRISB.

182
00:09:57,920 --> 00:09:58,800
Speaker 2: My benefactor.

183
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:02,320
Speaker 1: Oh idea, how many posters they printed from my band

184
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:06,280
Speaker 1: on a three paper like hundreds hundreds plus it all

185
00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:08,840
Speaker 1: over UQ and qut. Thank you so much for those

186
00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:10,480
Speaker 1: guys subsidizing my income.

187
00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:15,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it's a really as an emerging artist,

188
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:19,520
Speaker 2: you've got to use whatever you can, whatever means possible.

189
00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:24,440
Speaker 1: You mentioned seeing teenagers disconnected from reading. What happens when

190
00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:26,319
Speaker 1: our kids get disconnected from reading.

191
00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:31,480
Speaker 2: They're not experiencing the full range of their imagination or

192
00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:36,760
Speaker 2: its capacity to make an enormous difference in your life

193
00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:40,840
Speaker 2: in every possible respect you can imagine, whether it's read

194
00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:45,760
Speaker 2: at a very basic level, reading directions on a medicine bottle.

195
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,880
Speaker 2: If you can't read, your health is going to suffer

196
00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:51,560
Speaker 2: as a result. I've worked a lot with the Indigenous

197
00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:57,600
Speaker 2: Literacy Foundation and it opens up possibilities for those tiny

198
00:10:57,679 --> 00:11:03,240
Speaker 2: communities to interact and have a say with the wider

199
00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:07,960
Speaker 2: Australian population and have a say in their own what

200
00:11:08,080 --> 00:11:12,040
Speaker 2: happens to them and their own possibilities for acting in

201
00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:15,960
Speaker 2: the world. So, yeah, there's small and there's big, but

202
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:20,360
Speaker 2: there's also really importantly and really easy to underestimate the

203
00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 2: idea that you have a second life that you're going

204
00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,960
Speaker 2: as a school student. You're in an institution with rules

205
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:31,679
Speaker 2: and regulations and they want you to knuckle down and

206
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,880
Speaker 2: conform because that's the easiest for them. But in the

207
00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:38,760
Speaker 2: other sense, you've got a world of books in your

208
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:43,199
Speaker 2: head where chaos and danger and there are no rules.

209
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:48,560
Speaker 2: And I took sustenance from that as a kid because

210
00:11:48,559 --> 00:11:51,240
Speaker 2: I was always into books and I knew that the

211
00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:53,480
Speaker 2: school wasn't the whole world.

212
00:11:53,679 --> 00:11:57,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a big world out there at the moment.

213
00:11:57,160 --> 00:11:59,520
Speaker 1: You recall earlier the anecdote about the kids going, oh,

214
00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:03,520
Speaker 1: we're right about that. Just even opening the idea of

215
00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:08,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, possibility and imagination. They can play a

216
00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:10,560
Speaker 1: role in I don't know how you get your car fixed,

217
00:12:10,679 --> 00:12:12,440
Speaker 1: or where you're going to go look for work, or

218
00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:14,040
Speaker 1: what person might be a good partner.

219
00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:14,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

220
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:15,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

221
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 2: I had one kid once tell me, oh, I don't

222
00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:18,439
Speaker 2: need to learn to read because I'm going to be

223
00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:22,320
Speaker 2: a professional footballer. And I was like, well, good luck

224
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:24,640
Speaker 2: with that, and I hope you get there. But when

225
00:12:24,679 --> 00:12:27,240
Speaker 2: you do, they're going to put a big contract in

226
00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:30,240
Speaker 2: front of you, and if you can't read that contract,

227
00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:32,520
Speaker 2: they're going to run rings around you, use you up,

228
00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:37,240
Speaker 2: and you'll be spat out. So literacy you're going to

229
00:12:37,320 --> 00:12:37,719
Speaker 2: need that.

230
00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:38,400
Speaker 1: Now.

231
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 2: I never knew whether that kid grew up to be

232
00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:44,640
Speaker 2: a professional footballer and took my advice, but it seems

233
00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:49,600
Speaker 2: to me reading is fundamental to whatever you're interested in,

234
00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:52,520
Speaker 2: whether it's fixing your car. You can get a book

235
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:57,640
Speaker 2: or go onto the internet and find that information. I

236
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,640
Speaker 2: guess now you could watch a YouTube video. Yeah, so

237
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:05,360
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily need to read. But everything I learned,

238
00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:09,960
Speaker 2: even about writing, was given to me from books.

239
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:13,120
Speaker 1: It's important what you said earlier, like the idea that

240
00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:18,000
Speaker 1: this current reality that I have now there's possibility outside

241
00:13:18,040 --> 00:13:19,760
Speaker 1: of that. And it might be you're watching a YouTube video.

242
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,200
Speaker 1: You know how to fixing something's busted in a fibro? Right,

243
00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:26,000
Speaker 1: how do I fix that? Oh, there's a possibility to

244
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,080
Speaker 1: exist where it's fixed. Ah, from here to there. This

245
00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:32,800
Speaker 1: is the permanent situation. I can change my outcomes here exactly.

246
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:37,439
Speaker 1: And expanding that in the kid's brain is really important.

247
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:40,800
Speaker 2: It seems to me the most important thing, rather than

248
00:13:40,880 --> 00:13:45,200
Speaker 2: teaching them a lesson about always being honest or you

249
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:48,959
Speaker 2: know whatever. Those books that like to have messages.

250
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a guy who used to work with at

251
00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:55,040
Speaker 1: the radio station I mentioned earlier. He had. He called

252
00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:57,360
Speaker 1: it the Poobumwee theory, and that if you want to

253
00:13:57,360 --> 00:13:59,760
Speaker 1: engage a kid under the age of ten, just mentioned

254
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:01,880
Speaker 1: any the three words and are on board.

255
00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:06,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is what I discovered early on. You've

256
00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:09,240
Speaker 2: got a big reaction when you went to those taboo

257
00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:13,520
Speaker 2: areas and the day my bum went psycho. Eventually I

258
00:14:13,559 --> 00:14:15,960
Speaker 2: wrote a novel because I thought, well, if they're so

259
00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:20,480
Speaker 2: interested in this subject, why don't we harness that power

260
00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:24,400
Speaker 2: to trick them into reading an entire fifty thousand word

261
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:29,080
Speaker 2: book about runaway bums. And I took great pride in

262
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,520
Speaker 2: using that material. People thought, Oh, it's because you find

263
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:39,560
Speaker 2: bum humor really hilarious yourself, which is I think there's

264
00:14:39,640 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 2: higher forms of humor it's funny that they are. And

265
00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 2: if you're as wonderful and artiste as me, you can

266
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:53,880
Speaker 2: make them really funny by not even mentioning the word fart.

267
00:14:53,920 --> 00:14:58,080
Speaker 2: And the word fart does not appear once in that

268
00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:02,080
Speaker 2: book or the two books that followed, because I've found

269
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 2: that if I was reading a section of it, and

270
00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:08,720
Speaker 2: I test everything I do in front of audiences just

271
00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:11,360
Speaker 2: to see if it's as funny as I think it is,

272
00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:14,960
Speaker 2: and whenever I would say the word fart, they'd be

273
00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:19,600
Speaker 2: mild titter. But if I implied the word fart, like I said,

274
00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,720
Speaker 2: when your bum when a bumer is talking to you,

275
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:25,080
Speaker 2: you've really got to block your nose because you can

276
00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:28,640
Speaker 2: get pretty unpleasant. And then you see them having to

277
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:32,440
Speaker 2: do one plus one, oh yeah, because it's farting as

278
00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,720
Speaker 2: it's talked to you, and that creates a much bigger laugh.

279
00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:39,280
Speaker 2: You're giving them some work to do because they're.

280
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:42,080
Speaker 1: Using their own imagination to put it together and they're

281
00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 1: enrolling their own experience of those two variables. Now it's

282
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:47,120
Speaker 1: a personal thing to them.

283
00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:52,920
Speaker 2: And the surprise of that is a much better quality laugh.

284
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:54,520
Speaker 2: And so tell me about this.

285
00:15:54,840 --> 00:15:57,520
Speaker 1: The idea of testing something is something that I've always

286
00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 1: loved to do. Like I'm working on, you know, a

287
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:03,360
Speaker 1: new TV format, Like I will go into a theater

288
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:06,000
Speaker 1: and we'll get eighty people in the room and try

289
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:08,400
Speaker 1: it out. And you just I used to really not

290
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:10,480
Speaker 1: like feedback because I took it all very personally. And

291
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 1: now I'm like, great, this is also now I know

292
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 1: something's wrong. How do I make it better?

293
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:17,040
Speaker 2: Give it to me now? Yeah, before I've gone to

294
00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:19,640
Speaker 2: all the trouble of making the TV show and then

295
00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:22,200
Speaker 2: you tell me you don't like. And the same with

296
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:24,360
Speaker 2: the book. You know, there's a year, at least two

297
00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:28,040
Speaker 2: years work in a book, and so I would I

298
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,640
Speaker 2: actually it was almost accidental. I started getting work as

299
00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 2: a visiting author in schools after leaving full time teaching.

300
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:38,920
Speaker 2: I lived off savings for a couple of years and

301
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 2: did the starving artist thing, and there was eventually offered

302
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:46,400
Speaker 2: work as a visiting writer. And so I was told

303
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:49,680
Speaker 2: I was put in schools four sessions a day, talk

304
00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:52,440
Speaker 2: to them, you know, do some writing with them, you know,

305
00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:56,840
Speaker 2: just turn them onto literacy. And I would talk to

306
00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:00,360
Speaker 2: them and certain ideas would fire them up. You know,

307
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,040
Speaker 2: I just notice it. So it's anyone ever been in

308
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,880
Speaker 2: the shower, and you know if you've put your foot

309
00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:07,600
Speaker 2: on the plug hole and tried to fill it up

310
00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:10,600
Speaker 2: with water. Yes, yes, yes, one hundred percent of the

311
00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:11,240
Speaker 2: audience go.

312
00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:11,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did that.

313
00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:13,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I flooded the bathroom.

314
00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:13,760
Speaker 1: I did this.

315
00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:18,879
Speaker 2: And I go, Okay, this is a great subject. So

316
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:21,120
Speaker 2: I do a little what if what if you were

317
00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 2: serious and you sealed up the doors of the shower

318
00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:26,320
Speaker 2: it was silly? Can well that'd be dangerous. No, you

319
00:17:26,320 --> 00:17:28,960
Speaker 2: shouldn't do that. I go, yeah, but let's think about

320
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:32,040
Speaker 2: it as a story where there are no there's no

321
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,400
Speaker 2: real danger in a story. So we can explore this

322
00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:38,240
Speaker 2: as a thought experiment, and I would get this whole

323
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:41,760
Speaker 2: sequence where the kid has sealed themselves in they have

324
00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:44,359
Speaker 2: to climb up into the roof because the tap broke.

325
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 2: West Case scenario all the time. And then I would

326
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:54,040
Speaker 2: convert those what really stand up comedy improvised performances into

327
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:56,560
Speaker 2: fiction at the end of the year, which is a

328
00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:59,400
Speaker 2: different beast because you haven't got the kids in front

329
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:02,919
Speaker 2: of you, but because you've been performing for them, you

330
00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:04,680
Speaker 2: can imagine them, and.

331
00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:08,160
Speaker 1: So you have this extraordinary kind of test away. It's

332
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:13,119
Speaker 1: in front of you and no problem with sharing feedback whatsoever.

333
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:15,720
Speaker 1: And you can read the body language very quickly. But

334
00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 1: that's working on.

335
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,800
Speaker 2: And I'll still do it today. I'll bring a few

336
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,880
Speaker 2: paragraphs that I've written and I'm not sure about them,

337
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,320
Speaker 2: and I'll feel the sweat breaking out in front of

338
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:30,080
Speaker 2: my head. So wow, as I read it in front

339
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:34,080
Speaker 2: of a thousand kids, which I did with Adventures Unlimited,

340
00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:37,080
Speaker 2: I just had a paragraph of this new idea that

341
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:39,919
Speaker 2: you were going to be the main character along with me,

342
00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:42,840
Speaker 2: and I read it out to a group of a

343
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 2: thousand kids in the Australian School in Singapore, and they

344
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:51,280
Speaker 2: were just hanging off every single word. One day, you

345
00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:53,840
Speaker 2: and me were walking through the forest and we came

346
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,760
Speaker 2: to a big hole and you said, wonder how deep

347
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:58,520
Speaker 2: that hole is? And I said, well, I'll use the

348
00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:00,679
Speaker 2: method where i'd drop a rock and we'll count the

349
00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:04,160
Speaker 2: seconds and then through a complicated equation, we'll know how

350
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,920
Speaker 2: deep it is. But we couldn't hear it hit the bottom.

351
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,280
Speaker 2: And so you said, I've got a better idea, and

352
00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 2: I said what's that? And you said I'm going to

353
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:14,159
Speaker 2: jump and I said, no, you idiot, don't jump, But

354
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:16,760
Speaker 2: you jumped, so I had to jump in after you.

355
00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:20,240
Speaker 2: So that's all I had, and the audience were totally hooked.

356
00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 2: And then what yeah, and I go, well, there is

357
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:27,040
Speaker 2: no more. I haven't written anymore. You tell me you're

358
00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:30,960
Speaker 2: the one who You're the Yudia who jumped. But yeah,

359
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:33,120
Speaker 2: so that told me that this could work.

360
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:37,480
Speaker 1: But again, it's the same thing of just getting enough

361
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 1: of a hook in there to allow the listener to

362
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:43,159
Speaker 1: understand that they are in on the possibility of what

363
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,200
Speaker 1: happens here and just not filling in the blanks too much.

364
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:48,880
Speaker 1: They do the rest of that work, so they get very,

365
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,400
Speaker 1: very enrolled, which is a very different kind of storytelling

366
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,719
Speaker 1: to what can be. Like we were walking in the

367
00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:58,720
Speaker 1: forest and that was undegrossed, smelled of nettles, and I

368
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:01,000
Speaker 1: could hear the twitter of the Magpiet And so you're

369
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:03,679
Speaker 1: giving them all the intel rather than just the basic

370
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:04,560
Speaker 1: and they have to fill it in.

371
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 2: Well, I know from being a kid, my imagination is alive.

372
00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:11,600
Speaker 2: You tell me forest, I've already got a picture of

373
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:14,200
Speaker 2: a forest. I don't need you to describe it. That's

374
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 2: just getting in my way now. And words are hard

375
00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:20,280
Speaker 2: when you're learning to read. You've got to work for

376
00:20:20,359 --> 00:20:23,000
Speaker 2: every word you know. If you ever, I'm sure you

377
00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:28,159
Speaker 2: have heard a young child reading their first reader. The

378
00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:30,280
Speaker 2: cat is.

379
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: On, Yes, yes, very good, the matt yes, yes? Is

380
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:40,879
Speaker 1: it not? Why is it to he? I'm sorry, mate,

381
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:44,040
Speaker 1: having to explain English words to a five year old?

382
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:46,200
Speaker 1: Why is it like that? I don't know. I just

383
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:48,880
Speaker 1: don't say the K and the letter in No, sorry, buddy.

384
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:49,880
Speaker 1: English is dumb.

385
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:54,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is dumb and it's hard work. And

386
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:57,920
Speaker 2: so I sort of take that as my beginning point,

387
00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:00,040
Speaker 2: and I think I'm not going to overload you with

388
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:03,560
Speaker 2: any words you don't need to read. And I've been

389
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 2: lucky enough to work with Terry Denton for twenty five years,

390
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 2: and I worked out how to get him to illustrate

391
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:15,640
Speaker 2: that forest in a way the reader can just inhale

392
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:19,400
Speaker 2: it visually and I can just get on with the story.

393
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:25,199
Speaker 1: I would love to know how you did that, not

394
00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 1: only because, like so very selfishly, I'm asking you this

395
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:31,280
Speaker 1: book from my own behalf, but also, whoever's listening was

396
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 1: ever at a picture book unless it was written and

397
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,520
Speaker 1: illustrated by There's a collaboration there, And at some point,

398
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: as an author, you have to give a bit of

399
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:47,919
Speaker 1: that imagination over to another person. How do you offer

400
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 1: ideas for what the page might be to illustrate it?

401
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:52,760
Speaker 1: Do you schedule? Do you write it out?

402
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:58,440
Speaker 2: Both? And in most cases most picture book writers will

403
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 2: never actually meet each other. It's the author and the illustrator.

404
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 2: It's fairly rare. The publisher is the sort of go between,

405
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:12,200
Speaker 2: and most illustrators go stay away from me. I'll illustrate

406
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 2: this the way I see fit. Don't want that meddling

407
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 2: author wrecking my ideas. And if you're lucky, it's a

408
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,040
Speaker 2: nice fit. But I was lucky enough to meet Terry

409
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 2: very early. And I'd also seen kids reading a free

410
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 2: reading period in the library, and they'd pick a book

411
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,879
Speaker 2: out from the shelves and they'd flick through it suspiciously

412
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:36,360
Speaker 2: to see how small the print was and whether there's

413
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:40,959
Speaker 2: any pictures. So I said to Terry, just go up

414
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,480
Speaker 2: and down the margins and put flick pictures on the

415
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 2: corners of the first just books, and don't illustrate what

416
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, because that's so boring. Everyone does that.

417
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 2: Just go mad in the margins. And so he created

418
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 2: a Mad magazine. Basically in the margins, kids are playing

419
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 2: with the book before they've even committed to reading a sentence,

420
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:09,400
Speaker 2: which I work hard to make a compelling first sentence.

421
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 2: So he did that for four years, and occasionally I

422
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 2: would go down to his studio down on a beachside

423
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 2: suburb in Melbourne and I would help him with ideas

424
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 2: and I just suggest random silly things like three blind mice.

425
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 2: Make them run up the clock, but they don't just

426
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 2: run down again, they rip the hands off the clock

427
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 2: and set fire to it. And he would draw this

428
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:35,400
Speaker 2: and it was just hilarious, like we were in year

429
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 2: seven again, and I said, I want to do this

430
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 2: like with you on a regular basis and create a

431
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 2: work together where I'm just telling his things. You're giving

432
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 2: me pictures and those pictures and then firing us both

433
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 2: up to see what else.

434
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: We do need to take a break back in a

435
00:23:54,440 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: moment with Annie Griffis, you have quite an output of work.

436
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: What is it to have a cadence to it? What

437
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: is it to know? Do you play like I'm going

438
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,359
Speaker 1: to do this many a year? How is it having

439
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: that kind of regular deadline? I guess in your life,

440
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,440
Speaker 1: I love a regular deadline. And it's been one book

441
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: a year for twenty five years. Occasionally there's been two books.

442
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,400
Speaker 1: In really mad years there's been three. But year working

443
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,239
Speaker 1: non stop because books suck a lot of time, and

444
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: there's the writing, and then there's the considering what you've written,

445
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 1: the testing of it, the rewriting, which is where you

446
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: refine it all. So yeah, one book a year, and

447
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: I love knowing that that deadline is there, and I

448
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: know the kids are hanging out for it too, and

449
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: there's in case some cases, saving up their pocket money,

450
00:24:58,040 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 1: and that's pressure.

451
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 2: I want to make sure they're getting the best possible

452
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 2: book for that pocket money that I can make when

453
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,640
Speaker 2: it's delivered, when you've and for people that have never

454
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 2: been a part of the process, is that you don't

455
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 2: just hand the book in.

456
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: In my experience, I wrote I think I wrote my

457
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: first book four times, like because there's that many re edits,

458
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: and all you're doing with handing over the draft is

459
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: like that's just slapping the clay on the pottery wheel.

460
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 1: And then from there that's where the shaping comes in.

461
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: And people that have your best interests at heart and

462
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: want to sell as me books and be as successful,

463
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 1: they tell you something like, oh, fuck you, just maybe

464
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: a way better or for like, with one sentence I'm

465
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: now far and give me that feedback again. But then

466
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: at the end of that, when it's all locked and

467
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: loaded and you're off to print, what do you do

468
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: in that time between there and launch to make sure

469
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: that because attack's pretty empty by then, how do you

470
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: feel that subconscious tank back up again so that you're

471
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 1: ready to go.

472
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: There's always one or two ideas that emerge at the

473
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 2: end of writing a book, not before you've finished, but

474
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 2: you've finished it, and you go, Okay, have I said

475
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 2: everything I need? Can I retire?

476
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: Now?

477
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 2: You go, oh no, there's just this little possibility in

478
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: the book suggests wouldn't it be fun to go underground

479
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 2: in the next book. Damn Now, I've got to write

480
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 2: that book, and you only need one little possibility for

481
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 2: ideas to start accumulating around it. And so in that

482
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 2: period between hand finalized finishing the book, I'm already onto

483
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 2: the next one, because I know I need as much

484
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 2: time as I can for all that prethinking and just

485
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 2: be open in the world to walk into a library

486
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 2: or a bookshop or just you know, around the place,

487
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 2: and things will You'll notice things if you write about

488
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: underground you'll magically your brain will be trained to pick

489
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 2: out the book on the underground, or will pick something

490
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 2: off off the ground.

491
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: Well, it's like if you're if when the baby's coming,

492
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: you never saw strollers, and now all you do is

493
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,360
Speaker 1: they've got they've got the upper baby too. Like all

494
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: you do is see strollers, Your subconscious goes, I know

495
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: we're attending to here, but does it get practically? Did

496
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: you go exploring treehouses? No?

497
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: I didn't. We were living in a second floor unit.

498
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 2: It was a townhouse and had three levels, and we

499
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: would often work in the second floor and it was

500
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:36,400
Speaker 2: up and you could see the beach and the walking tracks,

501
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 2: and Terry would come over and Jill, who was my

502
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 2: first editor and my best editor, she would just slash

503
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 2: three pages from any story I wrote and go, your

504
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 2: story starts on page four. You know, you're just clearing

505
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 2: your throat. But we would all be working together as

506
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 2: if we were up in a treehouse. And I remembered

507
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 2: being eight nine with my cousin David in his single

508
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 2: platform treehouse, and we'd be up there, away from the adults,

509
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 2: lost in some funny, weird game, and I just went, oh,

510
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 2: my goodness, that's what I'm doing as an adult with

511
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 2: my two friends, and we're making up an imaginative game,

512
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 2: only now we're writing it down and drawing it. So yeah,

513
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 2: that's where the idea of treehouse came from.

514
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: I've been in tree houses in the eighties that were

515
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: built on shall we say, like public land in between

516
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: homes in Brisbane, probably without the parents' knowledge of the

517
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: structural integrity of them, so high off the ground. I

518
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: was terrified to be in them, and yet it was

519
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: the greatest thing ever treehouses that people will probably never

520
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: let their kids do today. What even your I mean,

521
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: this is just my way to get towards it. You know,

522
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: there's reading they're sitting, there's reading your stuff, and then

523
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: there's taking that game that you're just describing in the

524
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: tree house outside and playing and experimenting with that imagination,

525
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: writing through your actions through the game. Adventure based play,

526
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: something that's so important for us. Why do you think

527
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: that's you know, something that we need to make sure

528
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: that kids getting enough of.

529
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a direct correlation between kids who

530
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 2: play with their hands and take chances in real life

531
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: and their ability to be engineers in later on. One creative

532
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 2: problem solvers. There's something about the tactile experience that's that's

533
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 2: really important. And we grew up in the seventies where

534
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 2: there wasn't so much parental supervision. You know. We could

535
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 2: just roam all day by the creeks and play in

536
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 2: the drains and.

537
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: Get home by get home by the time the streetlights

538
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: are on.

539
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 2: That was it.

540
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was it.

541
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: The dark is the dangerous thing. But as Richard Gloling.

542
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: Drains is like, fuck me, I just remember playing in

543
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: stormed rains, just like, well it looks like there might

544
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: be some rain, so maybe don't play that stormed right

545
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: thy kids? Like that was it.

546
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: But you know, Richard Glover in his book The Land

547
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 2: Before Avocados, he says, look, don't get to attached to

548
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 2: this idea that childhood was wonderfully So this was not

549
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,959
Speaker 2: coming necessarily from enlightened parenting. It was perhaps coming from

550
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 2: neglect and not everyone made it through, you know. So

551
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 2: there is a happy medium of allowing your kids to

552
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 2: be able to explore in a slightly dangerous fashion without

553
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: catastrophizing that it's going to end in terrible tragedy. And

554
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 2: I think we're way too far down that fear end

555
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 2: of the scale at this point.

556
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: Both my folks were doctors. Mom used to always say

557
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: that kids have got to eat dirt. They got to

558
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: eat dirt when they're little. It's don't clean their hands

559
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: too much. Like she was always a bit worried about

560
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: there's a person who's dealt with infectious disease and things

561
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: like this. She'd always look, it's so important to get

562
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: exposed to pathogen's early on, to just build resilience in it.

563
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: But the same I guess could apply to you. Kind

564
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: of got to fall over a few times. You've got

565
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: to come off your BMX hard enough, that's gravel still

566
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: stuck in your knee to know about being safe on

567
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: a bike.

568
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's only so much you can tell someone as

569
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 2: a parent. Yeah, there's nothing substitutes for real life experience.

570
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: And if you want to keep your kids safe, it's

571
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: much like teaching them to, I don't know, go to

572
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: the toilet by themselves or something like this. If you

573
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: want to keep your kids safe, Ultimately, at one point

574
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: they're going to be in a situation where they don't

575
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: know they're about to take a risk that they don't

576
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: realize how dangerous is because they've never been exposed to risk,

577
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:45,959
Speaker 1: and they've never been exposed to danger.

578
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, I have two daughters, twenty three

579
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 2: and thirty, and we noticed as our thirty year old,

580
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,239
Speaker 2: when she was little, there was a drive towards the

581
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 2: perfect child wildhood. Everything's got to be right, the right presence,

582
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 2: the right birthday party every year, and it's not necessarily

583
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 2: real life. Things do go wrong and the world doesn't

584
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 2: conform to you, and so it can be I think

585
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 2: limiting and confusing as a twenty something when suddenly your

586
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 2: parents aren't making sure everything is perfect. So a little

587
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 2: bit of adversity, as you say, builds resilience. Yeah, And

588
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 2: I think Jill and I let us we saw this

589
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 2: program once it said good enough parenting is good enough.

590
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, try to get it right, but realize

591
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 2: that you're not going to get it right all the time.

592
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 2: And that's okay as long as I mean it wasn't

593
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 2: quite as basic as food, shelter, love, But you know,

594
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 2: you're eighty percent of the way there.

595
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: You get those three you're doing okay.

596
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 2: You're doing okay, and the other all the rest that

597
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 2: we're sweating about the right bags for the lollies this

598
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 2: year is the twenty percent.

599
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't agree with it. I couldn't agree with

600
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: you more when you mentioned earlier that when you're towards

601
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: the end of book, an idea may show up. Where

602
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: do you keep those ideas? Do you have a note

603
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 1: on your phone? Do you have do you notice something?

604
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: You go, oh, yeah, that slippery slide is a different shape.

605
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: Do you write it down? So where does it go?

606
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 2: These days, I'll probably take a photo of the slippery

607
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 2: slide and I might send it to a folder ideas

608
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 2: for next book. Certainly that's what happened. I was touring

609
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: America and touring book. Touring across the world has been

610
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: enormously helpful for when I'm lying fallow and I was

611
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 2: in Atlanta and I had to take it was raining

612
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 2: for three days, and I took refuge in the CNN building,

613
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 2: which is a vast cafeteria and amazing you can see

614
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 2: all the levels of the building from the inside. And

615
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 2: I just was CNN tree NN. We need our own

616
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 2: news television news service in the treehouse. So that was

617
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 2: an easy one. It just happened to go. But I

618
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 2: wouldn't have found it unless I was there. Yeah, So

619
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 2: the next book had tree n n And on the

620
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 2: bottom of every single page in the sixty five story Treeouse,

621
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 2: there's a little what's the word in chirn oh.

622
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: The little crawler that goes across the crawl we call

623
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: a third In Australia we call it the third line.

624
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 1: Super Chiron is the name of the machine that makes

625
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: it work.

626
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 2: Okay, So on every single page there's a chiron that's

627
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 2: that summarizes the action on that page. And I don't

628
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 2: know if anyone realizes how much pain and sweat me

629
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 2: and Jill went through to get forty characters. There might

630
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 2: be two idiots, you know, get into a rubbish spin.

631
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 2: It's fantastic.

632
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: I had attention to detail because when you're a kid

633
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: and you read and reread and reread and reread and reread,

634
00:34:58,120 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: and you see stuff again and again and then think, oh,

635
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,839
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like on the fifth.

636
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 2: Reading, you must have got time. Yeah, yeah, they've got

637
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 2: a lot of time. And that's how I used to

638
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 2: read over and over.

639
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: I love that, like with I'm you know, and this

640
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 1: is the thing I think most. If there's one danger

641
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 1: that people in the public eye, like myself, I've had

642
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: that get into It's that as we start reading kids

643
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: books for our own kids, we're like, I could do

644
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: this and then put them you want to put out

645
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: of kids book. But it is a moment where you

646
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: have you're given a shared language that you and your

647
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: child because most of the time you've never had kids before.

648
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: I never had kids before, But now I get to

649
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: talk about using this word we found in a book.

650
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: We both know what it means, and that gives us

651
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 1: a shared communication. And even though I'm forty five years

652
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: older than him, we both know what we're talking about

653
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: because I've used this one word that's completely made up, yeap.

654
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 1: And it's so so lovely to bring that across generations,

655
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: isn't it.

656
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's part of that second life idea. I'm saying,

657
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 2: you have an imaginative world with your child that can

658
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 2: be triggered by a word or anything, usually a word.

659
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 2: And that's the thing with books that makes books different

660
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 2: from other media. I think in that you are it's

661
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 2: a very direct conversation between you and the author, and

662
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 2: if you're the parent there reading, you're the narrator. It's

663
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 2: really direct and very personal. And I think I got

664
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 2: an inkling of that with the new series where you

665
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: and me are the me is the narrator, there's no

666
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 2: other name. When the parent is reading to the child,

667
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 2: the parent becomes me and the child is you. And

668
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 2: one kid said to their father, Oh, Dad, I wonder

669
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 2: where we're going on our adventure tonight. You know?

670
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: And what a fantastic is not everybody's got your creative brain,

671
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 1: but you're giving that give to the parent immediately of

672
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: as far as your kid's concerned, you have this amazing

673
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: a imagination.

674
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 2: Let's go yeah, yeah, and it should be fun for

675
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 2: you as the parent too. So again, take out the

676
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 2: long passages of unnecessary detail, shorter chapters so we can

677
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 2: get to bed. So I'm writing from all points of

678
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 2: view to make the experience powerful for everybody.

679
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: Back in a seck's got to take a break when

680
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,240
Speaker 1: you're going through the bookshops and looking around, which authors

681
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: at the moment make you go, damn, that's some good

682
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: stuff there.

683
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 2: I'm actually in terms of kids or adults, I'm actually

684
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 2: reading Lec Blaine at the moment, who's written a book

685
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 2: called Australian Gospel about his extraordinary experience of having foster

686
00:37:55,280 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 2: siblings and their estranged father and mother the man was

687
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 2: a religious so it's extraordinary. And I've been following Lex

688
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 2: writing since his book memoir car Crash for some years,

689
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 2: and he recently got in touch and said I'm a

690
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 2: big fan and I've got this new book. And I

691
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 2: was going, oh my god, you know, that's amazing that

692
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 2: you were reading my nonsense and here you are. I

693
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 2: really think Australian gospel is very special. It's like Deckenzie

694
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 2: and the amount of characters per page and the way

695
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 2: he marshals it all into just pure storytelling. So that

696
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 2: excites me, no end.

697
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that there was a small hand that you

698
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 1: had in tiny yeah. Yeah, but you were part of

699
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: the feeding a subconscious like no, this is what a

700
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: story is. This is what a story can be. It's

701
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: a bum running.

702
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 2: Away, yeahs. And that's what I wanted to pass on

703
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 2: from the writers I admired, who was Enid Blyton. She

704
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 2: know how to tell story and get the kids into

705
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 2: trouble by the end of the first chapter. And also

706
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 2: people like Lewis Carroll who wrote Ellis's Adventures in Wonderland.

707
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 2: You know, I was so fired up by those books.

708
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,919
Speaker 2: And also this mad bookseller in Melbourne Round the turn

709
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 2: of last century Professor Cole Cole's Funny picture books, which

710
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 2: were just compendiums of weird pictures, funny versus horrifying stuff

711
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 2: which was marketed to kids. And it's all out of

712
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 2: date now and a bit totally politically incorrect a lot

713
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 2: of the time, but they were real the furnace of

714
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 2: my imagination. And I need to pass all this on

715
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 2: to the next generation because if I die without having

716
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: written at least one book, this could be lost. And

717
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 2: so yeah, it's passing on what is an end tradition

718
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 2: of storytelling.

719
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: When mom passed away, you know, you go through your parents' stuff,

720
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: and I actually grab some books that I remember from

721
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: when we were kids, and she was she was very

722
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 1: into the lineage of I guess publishing and storytelling. She's

723
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: got stuff from the eighteen hundreds, and I've got these

724
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: these kids which we used to read when we were little,

725
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: like terrifying shit like straw, Peter, have you ever seen

726
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 1: that thing?

727
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 2: Oh that's I cut my teeth on straw, rightful?

728
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: I read it like as a kid, you know, reading

729
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: these things, And that's a good example of the message story.

730
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 2: They were written ostensibly to teach children what the terrible

731
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 2: things would happen if you don't obey your parents. Boy,

732
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 2: So the girl who plays with matches, yea, mother says,

733
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 2: don't play with matches while I'm out, but she does,

734
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 2: and she sets her dress on fire. And then you

735
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 2: turn the page and she's burned into a little pile

736
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 2: of ashes, with nothing but her red ballet slippers and

737
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,879
Speaker 2: two cats crying their eyes out. Meo mio, miao mio.

738
00:40:58,000 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 2: We told her that she'd burned to death if she

739
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 2: did so, And even as a kid, I was well,

740
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 2: I was horrified by it, but I was also amused

741
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:11,919
Speaker 2: by it, because I thought, that's too much. If you're

742
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 2: trying to teach a kid not to play with that's

743
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:19,240
Speaker 2: that's over the top. So it becomes ridiculous. And the humor,

744
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: I think anethetizes you against the horror, and that's why

745
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 2: that book is so etched into many people's minds.

746
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,959
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, this is pretty early, pretty just because

747
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: it just because I had a printing press and an

748
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: artist didn't mean you were publishing something that was good

749
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: for kids.

750
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 2: Oh, but I think it was. It was brilliant.

751
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

752
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 2: I think thanks to the Internet, many survivors of this book,

753
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,439
Speaker 2: have now got to get right and sort of gone.

754
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: Should you read that book? Yes?

755
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 2: It was awful, Yes, but it is brilliant and it's

756
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 2: one of the models I use for my storytelling, along

757
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 2: with Grim's fairy tales. Yeah, they are horrifying, and yet

758
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 2: they address fears and concerns that we have in a

759
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 2: really vivid, nightmarish way. And they're powerful because they address

760
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: Hansel and Gretel. We have the fear of parental abandonment.

761
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,359
Speaker 2: It actually happens to them. They find a house made

762
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 2: of candy. Who wouldn't want that? And so they gluttony,

763
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 2: They eat lots, and then the old lady is a

764
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 2: cannibal who's trying to fatten the boy up so she

765
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 2: can eat him. And then they push him into the

766
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 2: push her into the fire, and it's it's far, I'm concerned, murder.

767
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 2: And yet we know that story because I think it

768
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 2: gives you the ability to name fears as a child,

769
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 2: because you're in a powerless position. And it shows two

770
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 2: resilient young children fighting against the odds to get back

771
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: to their home and they do.

772
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: Wolfing one of a science party his fifth birthday, Very

773
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 1: lucky to know a guy who goes around to high

774
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: schools and makes things explode, get kids fired on physics

775
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:08,280
Speaker 1: and science.

776
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 2: It's super fun.

777
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: Could you do Wolf his party? How are they five?

778
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:15,320
Speaker 1: Fuck you on there? They love it now. Rubert Nehman

779
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: his navy. He's shown me greate eleven physics homework done

780
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 1: by seven year olds. He said, they can handle it.

781
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: We just don't tell them about it till they're sixteen.

782
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,919
Speaker 1: But they can absolutely conceive of all of this. What's

783
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: something that surprises has surprised you in your teaching career

784
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: or otherwise about the level of creativity in young kids

785
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: that we may not understand that they are able to do,

786
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: and therefore we should maybe nurture or push them towards.

787
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 2: We have a number of correspondents, frequent correspondents, kids who

788
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 2: write letters and send us pictures and stories. And one

789
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 2: young man is obsessed with type writers, which I was

790
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 2: when I was his magical machines. Yeah, yeah, you know,

791
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:05,359
Speaker 2: year five, I think six. He's typing out stories and

792
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 2: just vibing off the thrill of seeing your words in print.

793
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: And I'm so thrilled to see that and to encourage

794
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 2: it and to say, yeah, I used to do that too,

795
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 2: keep going. Some kids can do a really fantastic imitation

796
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: of my writing, and then I do an imitation of

797
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 2: their writing, and it's a virtuous circle. But yeah, I

798
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 2: think kids are capable of enormous amounts of creativity and

799
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 2: understanding if we trust them and give them the material

800
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 2: and don't try to protect them from stuff. And you know,

801
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 2: I had the extraordinary experience. My mother used to run

802
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 2: the school Fate bookshop, so for a couple of months

803
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 2: before our spare bedroom would fill up with all the

804
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 2: neighborhoods unwanted, yes, adult books, psychology books, non fiction fiction, everything,

805
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 2: and I would just be in that room like a

806
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 2: bookshop literally came to my house. And I remember reading

807
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 2: pot boiler adult stuff way before I was able to

808
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 2: understand it. But that's fine. You know, I got what

809
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 2: I could from it. I read a book called The

810
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 2: Magic Power of Your Mind, a nineteen twenty self help

811
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 2: book that talked to you, what vast abilities your mind has?

812
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: You know?

813
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 2: And this went in deep and one book called Worlds

814
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 2: to Conquer, who was a reader's digest collection of chapters

815
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 2: from adventure true life adventure novels. So I'd go, I'd

816
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 2: learn how to. Memoirs of a sword swallower went in

817
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 2: deep by a guy called Dan Mannix who was a

818
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: nineteen forties carnival guy, and he to swallow swords, and

819
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 2: he described it in great detail when the sword goes

820
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 2: down and it touches the pit of his stomach, and

821
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 2: it makes you want to throw up. But if you

822
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: do it enough times, you lose the gag reflex, and

823
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 2: then that's not enough. He's got to get the new

824
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 2: fangled fluorescent tubes to put down their throats. But those

825
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 2: new fangled fluorescent tubes were quite thick, so they had

826
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 2: to have a sort of join a big hoops, so

827
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: that are very thick, and if you left them in

828
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 2: your throat too long, they would stick to your skin

829
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 2: or they could explode. So my mind, you know, I'm

830
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 2: ten years old, has been blown by wow, things I

831
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 2: could never have possibly imagined or experienced. And so that's

832
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 2: why I'm big on books and free reading.

833
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: When we're at the park with little Wolf and when

834
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: he was younger, he's better at it now, But SA,

835
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: if you're climbing on something that's bigger than he's ever

836
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:03,839
Speaker 1: done before, than say, hey, be careful, buddy, say cool

837
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: man hands first, then feet or strong hands, strong feet,

838
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 1: Just make sure you've got to like, just tell him,

839
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,479
Speaker 1: like you'll figure it out. Just these two primary things.

840
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: What's the version of that for getting kids to tell

841
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 1: a better story even when they're telling you about their day.

842
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it's what happened, you know, what happened

843
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 2: at school today. You'll probably get on nothing much, anything

844
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 2: go wrong. You know, if you're looking for the what

845
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: was out of the ordinary might help. My youngest daughter

846
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 2: would go into great detail. She could narrate every minute

847
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 2: of the school playground shenanigans that were going on, and

848
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 2: that was almost too much. Like I admired the attention

849
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 2: to detail, and I thought she would grow up to

850
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,879
Speaker 2: be a great novelist. Yeah, she's very creative, but more

851
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: in a making sense. So the creativity can take many

852
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 2: different forms.

853
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: People say I'm not a creative person, that you are.

854
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely everybody is creative. To solve any problem, you consider

855
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 2: a range of possibilities, and the more you've exercised your imagination,

856
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 2: the greater that range possibilities can be. But yeah, I

857
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 2: like the if you put a jar of cookies really

858
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 2: high up on a shelf and that person is hungry,

859
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 2: they're going to find a range of creative ways to

860
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 2: get to those cookies. And that's what creativity is. It's

861
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 2: solving a problem. And so to answer your question, you

862
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 2: can't get genuine creativity without a genuine problem to solve.

863
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 2: So that's what I'll give with a kid. I'll actually

864
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,439
Speaker 2: limit it. I'll give them parameters. I'll say, I want

865
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 2: you to write, could be a fifty words story. You

866
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 2: have fifty words to tell me a story with a beginning, middle,

867
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 2: and an end. That's a problem because how do I choose. Well,

868
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 2: you've got to make big choices here. Jar labels is

869
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 2: one thing I noticed once The jars of corn relish

870
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 2: look a lot like vomit. And I was like, I'd

871
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 2: love to buy a jar of corn relish, take it home,

872
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: soak the label off and write vomit on it, and

873
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 2: then put a set of instructions for its use on

874
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 2: the back. And so I did that. I said, it's

875
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 2: a great way if you've gone out for a big

876
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 2: night and it's been a bit of a dud, well

877
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 2: before you go to bed, just tip vomit all over

878
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 2: tip corn relish all over your bed, all over the floor,

879
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 2: all over the walls and the roof, and then when

880
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 2: you wake up you think, WHOA, I had the best

881
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 2: night ever. So I wrote all this up without being funny.

882
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 2: It was like seriousnesses and the amount of people who

883
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 2: would see it in the fridge and go is this real?

884
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 2: And I wow, if you just use a straight face

885
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 2: and I work within this jar label parameters, yeah, you

886
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 2: know anything is possible, So I do.

887
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 1: I do love the idea of restriction. One of my

888
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: natherors is a cinematographer, incredibly talented guy, and he now

889
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: shoots entirely on digital. So he got his his thirty

890
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: five mil cam back from the rental because it hasn't

891
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: got out in like three years, and he's got sitting

892
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: on his shelf. He's got a mag like this four

893
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 1: hundred feet shoots four minutes, and I'll say, damn, Like

894
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: I remember shooting like that with stills. Like when you're limited,

895
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: everyone kind of works a little harder to get it right.

896
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't have enough light with you,

897
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 1: you've got to stop shooting at like an hour before

898
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 1: sunset because we can't make anything. So everyone's a little sharp.

899
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 1: But when you can just keep shooting, or keep writing

900
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: you don't really know where the edges are.

901
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just from working with kids, or say, audience,

902
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 2: Who is the audience? What's the purpose of your communication?

903
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 2: And what form are you trying to work in? Is

904
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 2: it a jar label? Is it a fifty words story?

905
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 2: Is it an essay? Well, then you've got more words,

906
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 2: but what purpose? And you might not know your purpose

907
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 2: to begin with, but eventually I discovered through trial and error,

908
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 2: to make the reader laugh is a very big part

909
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 2: of what I can do. And I've got a book,

910
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 2: and I've got an illustrator who's really I've got a

911
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 2: couple now, Bill Hope, he's done adventures who I need

912
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 2: to leave room for on the page. So I've only

913
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 2: really got fifty to one hundred words per page. So

914
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 2: I have to work really hard to make those fifty

915
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 2: hundred words count. And that's where most of my year

916
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 2: it goes, is pairing them back.

917
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 1: We talked a little about music before. There was a

918
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: time in your life when were you the guy in

919
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: the silver top taking the guy to her door? Were

920
00:51:58,520 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: you like driving the cats?

921
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:00,919
Speaker 2: I was, yes.

922
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: What did you learn about you talked about testing before

923
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: when you're in that situation you cabby, you're talking like storytelling.

924
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: It has sometimes you've got ten minutes, sometimes you've got

925
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: five minutes. Did you learn anything from that time in

926
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: your life that informed what you do now?

927
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 2: I learned to ask the customer do you have a

928
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 2: preferred way to go? And seventy percent of the time yes,

929
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 2: they would direct you because this has been pre gps.

930
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 2: But yeah, you learned to be sensitive to who's in

931
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 2: the cab, what do they want to talk? Do they

932
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 2: not want to talk? And often your job was to

933
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:40,480
Speaker 2: listen to and talk. And yeah, there was some pretty

934
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,400
Speaker 2: unpleasant people out there too, But I loved. What I

935
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 2: did love was that you would just bounce around the

936
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: city like a pinball, never quite knowing where you're going

937
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 2: to end up next. And the road at three am

938
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 2: in the morning, as you cruising down stop at a

939
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 2: seven or eleven for a part I and a coffee,

940
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 2: the world was yours and it was another world.

941
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:06,959
Speaker 1: I've had jobs like that where I've had to drive

942
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:08,880
Speaker 1: around part of the city I never grew up in

943
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: and I never would go. You get so much more

944
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: of a sense of the community you actually live in

945
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,240
Speaker 1: the wider area, and when you expose the different people

946
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: from different circles and yours. You get a bit of

947
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: a wider picture.

948
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 2: And you don't have to go very you don't have

949
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 2: to go a few suburbs from where you live to

950
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 2: discover a whole new world. So if when you notice

951
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 2: it when you go traveling, if you go to another country,

952
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 2: it's really obvious. But I like to bring that sensibility

953
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 2: into my travels. Around my neighborhood. You can have that,

954
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 2: oh my god, I've never seen the world this way

955
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 2: or this place before. And I think that's part of

956
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 2: what I try to cultivate as a writer, and what

957
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 2: reading sensitizes you to as well, makes you see place

958
00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:01,800
Speaker 2: feel place as special, even if it's ordinary.

959
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,399
Speaker 1: I mean, besides the fact that I'm not making TV

960
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 1: at the moment, his current phase of like reinventing how

961
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: I pay the mortgage, it's really exciting. It could be

962
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,720
Speaker 1: also terrifying, but I just think it to be exciting.

963
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: And even when I'm like my biggest fantasy about like

964
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: a distin scales and I get that there, but then

965
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: I'm so not interested in retiring. I mean, I'm fifty,

966
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: but I don't know how I would stay married and

967
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: not have something to do. I would be a total

968
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 1: punish How do you see this as a part of

969
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 1: this writing? How do you see it as a part

970
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,399
Speaker 1: of your life from here? I'm sure you're doing great.

971
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: You know you could not work if you wanted to.

972
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 1: I guess well.

973
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 2: We came to the end of the Treehouse series last

974
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,919
Speaker 2: year and this was a watershed moment where Terry sort

975
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 2: of put up your sand and said, I think I'm ready.

976
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:53,359
Speaker 1: Twenty five was good.

977
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 2: Twenty five years have being bossed around by you. I'll

978
00:54:58,400 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 2: do no.

979
00:54:59,400 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: It was.

980
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 2: It was a wonderful collaboration and the fact we got

981
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:06,719
Speaker 2: to thirteen tree House books and we started with thirteen levels.

982
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 2: Every year we'd add thirteen and it was a joke

983
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 2: at the first that we'd do thirteen books, and then

984
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 2: we hit one hundred and sixty nine and I went, well,

985
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 2: that's the poetic, perfect place to stop, and should I

986
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 2: stop now? And there was very strong feedback from our

987
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 2: parents and our kids. They were just heartbroken. Is this

988
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:35,440
Speaker 2: your last book? The last book you're ever going to write? No? No, no,

989
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 2: It's okay, it's the last tree House book, but it's

990
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,279
Speaker 2: not the last book I'm going to write. And so

991
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:44,399
Speaker 2: I felt because I love writing them too, but there

992
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 2: was a very strong sense that please keep writing because

993
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 2: we just love your sensibility. To me, it's like a

994
00:55:54,760 --> 00:56:00,279
Speaker 2: vast three dimensional puzzle, like it's a jigsaw puzzle putting

995
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 2: together this narrative which has all these different dimensions, and

996
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,879
Speaker 2: you can you can invent pieces of the puzzle if

997
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 2: you need to, and you can get rid of pieces.

998
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 2: But when you get it all to work, it's just

999
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:16,840
Speaker 2: enormously satisfying. It feels like it's really happened to me,

1000
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 2: and I've just got the perfect narrative, and I can

1001
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,319
Speaker 2: convince other people that it's happened because I've lived it

1002
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 2: and believed it myself. It just and it gives me,

1003
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 2: as you say, something to do to gnaw on all

1004
00:56:30,640 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 2: the time.

1005
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 1: But connect you're connecting with people clearly, like you're connecting

1006
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: with them in such a way they could be I mean,

1007
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: they could be bothered to reach out to you. I mean,

1008
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 1: if my favorite Earth I didn't write as his next book,

1009
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: like I'm not going to email him and go hey,

1010
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 1: where is it? They actually give a shit to connect

1011
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:48,799
Speaker 1: with you and go hey buddy.

1012
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And that's what I've done since a young child,

1013
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 2: even in the neighborhood I grew up in. When I

1014
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 2: was ten years old, I was telling the bullshit stories

1015
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:03,919
Speaker 2: to the five six year olds about things I'd done

1016
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 2: and fighting sharks in the bath and they're going really,

1017
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:10,760
Speaker 2: and I say yeah, yeah. And the more they go really,

1018
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:15,440
Speaker 2: the more I'm dredging up supporting detail, like I'm making

1019
00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 2: up supporting detail. And that's the story writing process. And

1020
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 2: it's a game of make believe that I'm playing with

1021
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 2: the kids, and we've all entered into it, and it's like,

1022
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 2: how long can you keep coming up with this stuff

1023
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 2: before we stop believing? But there is no limit. And

1024
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm thrilled to be in a position where

1025
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 2: people invite me into their house every night to tell

1026
00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 2: them long, silly, made up stories. Yeah, I couldn't have

1027
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 2: worked out better.

1028
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: I'm thrill that you made the time on the comer

1029
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: and Boddy, thank you so.

1030
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 2: Much, thank you.

1031
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful. My nephew's always their shit when they

1032
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:58,160
Speaker 1: find out your camera. Now. That was Andy Griffiths. Besides

1033
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:01,920
Speaker 1: his famous, very famous Treehouse series, as a lot of them,

1034
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: He's got a new series just started. It's called Adventures unlimited.

1035
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:07,640
Speaker 1: We talked about it a bit today. I can't wait

1036
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:10,320
Speaker 1: until Wolfe is old enough to read his stuff. Georgia

1037
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,439
Speaker 1: or elder. She's now twenty almost twenty one. She kept

1038
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: a very straight face when Andy came through the kitchen.

1039
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 1: To be fair, She's rarely impressed by anybody that ever

1040
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: shows up at the house or any event. I ever

1041
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 1: take her too, because you know, that's what the job

1042
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: is when you're a teenager. Whatever, I love it. She's

1043
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: so cool. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks

1044
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 1: for being a part of the show. If you liked

1045
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: this episode, please share it with someone. Thanks to Andy

1046
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 1: Marher who did audio video post production. Becksia did video

1047
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 1: post Abby Burno produced this episode. Minica Chapman's my executive

1048
00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:44,440
Speaker 1: function assistant. Thank you for listening. If you need to

1049
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. The links in the show

1050
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 1: notes for the substack. I'll see you here on Monday.