Guests are very welcome on the show! I would love to hear from you if you are:
- A published author of a work of fiction, poetry, or literary history written for children
- A school teacher who teaches literature to children
- A parent who teaches literature to your children
- Someone with a particularly fond memory of a book from childhood
- A child or parent and child team that wants to discuss about a favorite children’s book. (The show will not feature children as guests without a mom or dad giving the a-ok to join in the fun, so have your parents contact us, kids.)
The show usually does not feature works of non-fiction. This is not because such works are not valuable to children, but because the show focuses on fictional literature used in classroom settings. The show does not feature self-help books, parenting guides, or books about child psychology. However, a non-fiction children’s book that is closely related to children’s literature, or a topic that is related to the history of literature would be quite welcome.
Self-published works are also not usually featured on the show, although exceptions may be made for especially promising works or for stories written by children and sent in with a parent’s permission.
The Children’s Literature Podcast aims to be family friendly. Episodes cannot feature mature themes or explicit language in order to ensure that parents and teachers can listen with children present. This does not mean that difficult or sensitive topics cannot be approached; they just need to be discussed using words that would be age appropriate for children.
Tips for a Good Interview
When interviews are conducted online, they will be recorded from Zoom. However, occasionally there can be those annoying drops in the connection which mean that a guest’s audio will be absent or muddled at moments in the recording. As a backup against this, it’s advisable for a guest to directly record their own audio. Guests can use any common recording program that they already have on a home computer to make the recording. If a program is needed, the free and open source program Audacity is very easy to use. After the interview, this backup recording should be sent to letters@childrensliteraturepodcast.com. These backups usually aren’t needed, but a few times they have been very important when a Zoom call froze right in the middle of an author saying something fascinating!
You do not need to have a home recording studio to get good audio quality. Here are some tips so you can sound your best:
- Sit in a room with lots of soft surfaces. Rooms with lots of smooth, flat surfaces cause a lot of echo.
- Speak toward a surface that won’t reflect sound. A flat wall will cause the sound to bounce back at you. A very easy solution is to sit facing a set of closed curtains. The smooth, uneven surfaces will absorb stray sound waves.
- Wear headphones or earbuds. This will prevent any problems with your microphone picking up sounds from your own speakers.
- Practice recording your voice ahead of time to be sure you are sitting at the right distance from the microphone and avoid making any bumps or movements that make too much noise.