Tag: local author

73 – Interview with Rachel Greaves

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Rachel Greaves is my Leicestershire Children’s Writer for the month of May. She was kind enough to come to my home for a chat about her books, her creative designs for puppets, and future plans for Ruffle the Rail Dog, the lovable, adventurous pup who stars in her books. You can find Rachel’s books at ruffletheraildog.co.uk.

Rachel made Eric, the puppet on the right, entirely out of recycled or repurposed materials, resulting in a cute, lightweight, but sturdy character to feature in live performances of her stories.

Eric’s body is made from an empty four pint milk jug and his hands are carved wooden spoons. The hands are especially clever as the long handles allow the puppet’s arms to be easily manipulated without children seeing how during shows. This makes the puppet more believable and draws in the audience. Rachel also makes excellent use of Ruffle when she performs with him, making sure that he’s always moving around in a natural way.

Please do check out the adventures of Ruffle the Rail Dog! He’s a charming little guy with a lot of adventures that your kids can join in.

67 – Interview with Tom Phillips

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March’s Leicestershire Children’s Writer is Tom Phillips, also known as Tom the Tale Teller. He’s the author of Leicestershire Folk Tales for Children, a collection of local stories from the spooky and fantastic to the sad but true.

In our conversation, we talk about the importance of keeping in-person storytelling alive. It’s more important than ever in a world full of digital distractions. Tom explains how he selected the stories for his book, how he dealt with the problem of multiple versions of a story, and how he managed to simplify the very complicated tales of Lady Jane Grey and Richard III. We also mention two places that have inspired storytelling for each of us — Bradgate Park here in Leicestershire and Sycamore Canyon in Los Angeles.

You can find Tom the Tale Teller online. Give him a follow to see videos of past storytelling and find out where you can see him in person!

Check out my previous features of Leicestershire Children’s Writers. Each month this year I’ll be featuring an author from my community!