Introducing The KidLit Pod

Married creative collaborators Marc McBride (Deltora Quest illustrator) and Sofie Laguna (author and 2015 Miles Franklin Award winner), share the individual and joint paths that brought them to the incredible creation of Blunderbore - a new, fractured fairytale graphic novel that is truly mind-blowing. Throughout this episode, Sofie and Marc share how creativity shaped their childhoods and careers. Sofie describes moving from law to acting, working as a jobbing actor (including being a fairy ...

Tim Probert is the award-winning author-illustrator of the critically acclaimed, global sensation, the Lightfall graphic novel series. In episode 23 of The KidLit Pod, host Shara Curlett chats with Tim about his creative origins, career path, and process. With a childhood immersed in creativity, Tim describes how his love for drawing emerged early on, and how he was constantly drawing both because of the enjoyment of it, and as a way of helping him to focus while listening in class at school....

Historical children's fiction can be a critical link that piques a child's interest in both non fiction and history, and South Australian journalist and for award-winning children’s author, Catherine Bauer, this is an area that has really sparked her joy. In episode 22 of The KidLit Pod, Catherine discusses her creative childhood and how she would delight in making her own books, adding colourful drawings and stapling the pages together. She respects the role that boredom had in developing he...

From creating zines to being shoulder tapped to illustrate a picture book, award-winning Aotearoa illustrator-author, Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Izzy) comes onto The KidLit Pod to share her impressive career. In episode 21, Izzy, Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, discusses her childhood creativity and how art captured her early on, while her twin sister and older sister were more sporty. Izzy's parents facilitated this love of art by encouraging her to d, private art classes, guiding ...

With an impressive bibliography of having illustrated over 80 novels, Aki Fukuoka is a veteran of the kidlit industry, with 30 of those novels being the Billie B Brown series with Sally Rippin, which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. In this incredible deep dive with host Shara Curlett, Aki shares how her family immigrated from rural Nagano, Japan to Whangarei, New Zealand when she was eight, where drawing became her identity and her solace. Having been heavily influenced by a love of...