The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch – an interview with Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, we’re incredibly excited to be joined by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent to discuss their newly released book, Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch! Follow Rhianna @RhiPratchett and Gabrielle @GabrielleKent on TwitterFind us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Acquire your very own copy of Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch here:Discworld EmporiumDiscworld.ComWaterstonesBritish LibrarySee also:Rhianna Pratchett & Gabrielle Kent in Conversation [with Rob Wilkins] - Waterstones Piccadilly (20 Nov) Gabrielle Kent Rhianna PratchettMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Hello dear listeners, today we're extremely excited to share an interview with Rihanna Pratchett in Gabrielle Kent, the author of Tiffany Aikings' Guide to Being a Witch. Lava-ishly illustrated by Paul Kidby, the guide covers, in Rihanna's words, everything you've ever wanted to know from telling the bees to magical cheese, from dealing with elves to making deals with demons, from tending flocks to fending off forces from other worlds. The guide was published on the 9th of November and is now available wherever you usually find your books. And as for our guests, Rihanna Pratchett is an award-winning video games writer,

a creator of works, including the fighting fantasy novel Crystal of Storms, a screenwriter and a producer. Rihanna is also Terry Pratchett's daughter. She inspired the character of Escarina and Muppchell's Besides, and is the co-director of Narrativeia, which holds the rights to all of Terry Pratchett's works. Gabrielle Kent is a narrative consultant and children's author with an extensive background in video games that brought her into friendship and eventual collaboration with Rihanna. She is the author of the Alfie Bloom,

Knights and Bikes and Rani Report series. Her writing talents combined with her deep knowledge of and love for Discworld made her the obvious choice of co-author. So, without further ado, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The Trishamaki Fre, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Toe Project's Discworld series One A Stime Inchronology Glowder, I'm Joanna Hagen, I'm Francine Carroll, and we have two very very special guests with us today, acclaimed writers, Rianne Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent. Welcome to the pod. Thank you for being here. A quick note on spoilers before we crack on, we are usually a spoiler-like podcast, however,

this episode will contain spoilers for all of the witches, books, the Tiffany Aking books and the Shepard's crown. So if you are coming on the journey with us, I would recommend skipping this stop and buggering off now. Thank you. I'm going to say that too, just in case you're too used to this intro, not hearing it. Spoilers for all the books. Okay. Not only is this year the 20th anniversary of Tiffany's debut into the disc world, it is also just three days after you've released Tiffany Aikings go to being a witch. Very exciting. Very exciting. Yeah, we're still watching and seeing reviews coming in just waiting with bearded breath and messaging each other. Have you seen that yet? We like it. Yes. Very much. That's our entire review. It's good.

No, yes, good. All right, write something a bit more substantial later. But yeah, so this was announced way back in May, wasn't it? So it's been been quite a little bit over the summer. Must have been a bit nerve-wr now lacking the last few days before publication. Yeah, I can't when did we finish it, Gab? Like it feels like when finished it by the time we got announced, we had so we wrote it. I think it was it was January, February, wasn't

it? We were working on it. And then I think from March, it was mainly edits. Yeah. So I think it was pretty much good to go by the time it was announced. So we were, yeah, we were sitting on it for a while. When did the idea of has come about? It's, we're keeping us that. We struggled to remember. I think we were looking, we being both narrative and done manifest in, we're looking to do something in celebration of 20 years since we free men. And I think the sort of the rough idea of the title came up. And I think Rob took it to me originally.

And I said, yeah, I'd love to work in this by like, having to work on this too. And yeah, it all kind of went from there. And I spoke to Garben. I knew what a fan she was of the Witchess series and it's my favourite strand as well. And yeah, it all fell into place really well. I think that's the way we're going to. And you guys have quite a long history of working together

and in the same spaces, don't you? Not actually working together until more recently, but we first met in, it was 2004, at the very first Women in Games conference because we were an eye of both games industry veterans And yeah, who met in a room full of women in video games. And I don't think either of us actually let many women work in

video games on this room, full of them, which was amazing. And yeah, we just really hit off then and we've been, so it's almost our 20 year anniversary read. We've seen each of's careers evolve when yeah. Gabrielle's life better at dates and I am. Do Michael's windows I remember everything.

Gabrielle's definitely more organizational side of the talk. And so you kind of you kind of get worked in the same spaces for a long time and then how did that evolve into working together on projects? Gabrielle, I've been doing some work for Dunman Fest in a narrative year and some stuff I was working on and just helping me out with a few bits and pieces and I was sort of like slowly drawing her into the Discworld family. It kind of came along. I was, yeah, and I I'd known what a wonderful writer Gabb was for many, many years, and I really wanted to bring her in on something. And it was a sort of slow burn. Gabb was doing some pieces for the website and I think it sort of it proved to that to a wider group of

people just how good a writer she was and just how well she understood this world. So that when I sort of said yes but I'd like to work on it with Gabrielle as well they were like yes of course so that was longer that's longer even happening but it all worked up well. They were like, you guys of course, so there's longer, there's longer even happening, but it all worked out well. Yes, because of course, it had to be somebody very trusted to be brought into the, into the fold. But actually the writing club. Oh yeah, I did not take working on this world lightly as a huge fan of the series and like read the witches in particular, it was it was a big thing to to step into that world and you just you want all of the fans to just know how much love you have for it and to be able to what's to with it.

That's great. I think it does shine through for sure. Did you find as you were working on the book, you were both like very comfortably on the same page about what it means to be a witch. So yeah, it feels so long ago that we wrote it. Like, fast-coded we have arguments. Like, no, no, I don't think we did. We've never been particularly argumentative types of friends. We've never really had a good round, I think, but we haven't. No, we haven't. Even so, Rihanna was my, the maid of honor at my wedding and everything and with no even wedding rouse or two weddings. Like not until two days.

Yeah, yeah. We had the wedding in the UK and then the wedding over in Mauritius. So Rihanna came out to Mauritius for our Hindu ceremony as well. And like, two weddings and no arguments within that. So I think we're pretty solid. I think we have no arguments with me. I know. I know. Yeah.

No one is aware of any other arguments. Not important, that's fine. So yeah, we kind of, we did work really smoothly together. I think I think as well, because we're such good friends, there was no fear of giving each other, we knew that any feedback we gave each other was just going to be taken positively the best interests of the book.

And I don't think we had any harsh feedback for each other at all. I know I told you to take out some of the mentions of nice cups of tea. I think I was just writing a lot when first in Hungary, and I ended up putting lots of tea and food references in. I think I was maybe probably a little bit more nervous showing my work to Gabriela than she was to me because I am less experienced in prose. And you know Gabriela and so many wonderful children's books. and you know, gaps are in so many wonderful children's books. And so I was a little bit shy, but I think we kind of got through that quite quickly. And we would each, we sort of decided on

the chapter headings and then we kind of divided it up. And there was some that came out, like I think the the Figuel chapter was originally the the the Figuel were part of the companions chapter and then we decided to to get them their own chapter because it felt it felt they needed their own chapter. It means it's good on it. So there's something that happened like that. But we planned it out fairly well and we were sort of, we have a lot of Google Docs going, like, but we thought, you know, about five Google Docs going at any one time. And so we would like drop down ideas, possible ideas for imagery and things like that. And towards the end, Paul, who's just done a phenomenal job on this. Yeah, I really think

it's the best collected work of Paul Kidby, there is. Yeah, it's a real kind of tour de force. He was basically saying, oh, I really like to draw drones or grim haves. I've got a drone. I really like to draw drones or grim haves got a drone. So yeah, there were things like he'd been holding back and really wanted to do. And that was kind of nice as well. So it meant that there was a little back and forth with pull and I was saying I've known pull for a very long time. And yeah, it was all really nice. It was all admirable and just great. Yeah, I don't know whether I'm just looking back

with Ruth to the glasses. No, it's really awesome. Absolutely lovely. And the fact that we had so while we're working in live documents, we were chatting in Zoom as well. Some of the subject issues when we're doing a lot of editing, we just had the Zoom on all day, chatting to each other while we're watching each other, typing in. Oh, that's lovely.

They call it holding space, but you're just, particularly, if you work from home, we just like, we'd throw up the zoom and we just kind of, even when we weren't necessarily working on the dock, just to, it was comforting to see someone else typing away in the corner. And yeah, we still sort of sometimes do that. And it's a comfort. Yeah. Soft motivation. No, I mean, I was going to say because you both worked in such collaborative industries, feedback from other parties is not unknown. Totally. Games has helped prepare me for that because you're working in an industry where. Most people don't know a lot about storytelling. They make big they do.

Because they've read some books or they watch TV, but actually the craft of it, not so much, but that does not stop them giving lots and lots of feedback. So getting or you know the feedback that's kind of hard to iterate on is they know they don't know what they want but they know it isn't this particular thing you give. Yeah. I think they're that's what they want. So having like targeted feedback and I found this moving out of games actually and into doing kind of film and TV and comics where that the people involved are maybe a bit more experienced in developing story and giving feedback that it's more targeted and easy to work with. So I'm quite flexible when it comes to feedback. I'll fight my corner a little bit, but if it makes sense and it's kind of like in my wheelhouse to do, then I'm kind of flexible, I don't get too precious, I really think games knocked, knocked

off any corners that came across or when I went, they had when I went into it, but yeah, I think I definitely found in other mediums it gives me a little bit more room to kind of stretch out. Yeah, sure. And so specifically for this book, of course, the thing we're getting on the same page on this, there's witchcraft, which is just this huge topic within Discworld. And you both kind of grew up with witchy connections in the family, witchy and, so did you, slight quotes there, but.

Well, she's a fidesse. Yeah, fidesse, yes, granny aching. I mean, my granny dampse in Ireland, so my mother's are, she's born in a farm in Galway and my granny dampse in Galway. I didn't realise that I didn't actually think, and you read how to Sheppardess grandmother and I was, wait a minute, Granny kept sheep, didn't she? But yeah, and she was the one that looked after the sheep and Granddad looked after the cows and said, yeah, all right, so she was a Sheppardess, so she was the one that looked after the sheep and granddad looked after the cows and

they said yeah, so she was a chef at S, so I'm sure but that's grandmother's, we both like granny aches. But granny Dempsey just had all the mad stories about the little people that lived on the farm. She kept every case I gave her, she kept in a tin on top of the dresser to exchange for whatever with the little people. Oh, man, it's good. I'm wondering if it was people who could have exchange. She had in the cabinet. Yeah. But yeah, she had all kinds of bizarre magical stories,

like the lady on the farm next door who passed away. And she was buried with all the jewelry. The family were very poor so they dug her up that night to remove her jewelry. They couldn't remove the wedding ring so they snipped the finger off and then she let up and lived in other five years. Oh God. This is what I grew up with this sort of stuff. Just like that full feather and slice.

God. I love that. So I guess that kind of... Growing up hearing all those stories must have made you a lot more open to falling quite so far into Discworld. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's... This story's from the chalk. it feels very much like a rural way yeah so did you find obviously there's like a whole rich text of which law or in

disc world already but did you find you're putting more sort of bits from your real lives and finding ways to incorporate those into the book as well well that's what I think you're at the British library talk when you're both at the beach was, Francine was, I had to miss it, taking up the dog. I added in some goat, goat milking wisdom. I've practiced and I thought, oh my god, should I mention this? Are people going to be worried that I've abused a goat as a child? And it was about milking goats in that goats do have higher archaea, they are kind of like witches in that regard but they they will bite

each other's ears to establish dominance and their goats are just very mischievous when it comes to being milked and they'll put their hoof in the milk bucket or kick it across the yard. And so one of the ways to establish dominance is to bite their ear, not particularly hard and if you've ever been close to a goat's ear it's like biting a carpet. But I put that in as a bit of wisdom in how to deal with goats from from mistick. And yeah that is based on genuinely that occasionally when I was milking goats. So I did milk like I had a very rural I I look at a rural childhood I learn how to to spin wool and milk goats and it is like it's good like post-apocalyptic training post-apocalyptic training. My parents are very like Tom and Barbara in the good life, and they go to the front garden and check into ducks and back and bees in the field in the valley.

So I grew up with a lot of what occurs in the witch bricks, like the significance of bees done was a beekeeper. I remembered like checking the hives with him and watching him kind of strain the honey out of the combs and things and I remember him like sleeping around after swarms on back of his motorbike. And yeah, put that in like heat, sorry, I wasn't on the back of his motorbike, he will on his motorbike, but I remember he had he used to have a beekeeping outfit that he had drawn a skull and crossbones wearing a beekeeping

a beekeeper's veil said, um, health beekeepers on it. And so he had a motorbike time and he used to chase the swarms in the motorbike. I wasn't like that. But yeah, he was sort of chasing swarms on there and I remember so he was taught beekeeping from a Mr. Brooks. So that's Mr. Brooks beekeeper. That's sort of based on real life as well. So a lot of witchy stuff is based on you know, Pratchet history as well. So there's a lot of it in there. So I was, I, yeah, I definitely knew the right wellspring to draw from. Yeah. Yeah. The witch is art kind of seems like the natural one to pick up generation leaders, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a lot more of just how we grew up and how, you know, from when my mum and dad were a young couple before they before they had me and how I grew up in a manonichal, so it was always just the three of us. But there was so much that like I would see in the books and like oh that's from you know be keeping all that is a joke I made about a cat. Yeah occasionally my jokes were getting the timing in egg by singing verses of where has all the custard gone? It comes from a joke is of where has all the custard gone? It comes from a joke, like I would a cat with a particularly swingy under carriage, I would poke it and go, where's all the custard gone? That's like that, guys, and to just do stuff occasionally, things like that. So it's very difficult to differentiate between sort of discquelled and life.

But yeah, it was, I probably remember more about the goats than the bees, because I used to walk. I would occasionally walk the goats as well and pick up the goats in the field. So they would be taken in the morning. So I think they would be milked. I remember if they were milked once a day or twice a day, but they were milked and then they were walked to their field where they would spend the day and that

was over the other side of the valley. And then we'd go back in the evenings and pick them up and that you'd have them on leads like ducks. And so I would sometimes go and pick them up myself. And I didn't know this but my dad would watch me On the top of the valley he could because we lived on one side of it And we would go yeah, you go down into the valley go a lot of it and go up one of the slopes to our field And yeah, he would watch me from the top of the slope just to the Yeah, the goats were a big car and we had goats up until I was about eight or tenish because we never got to go leave the country and all have very many holidays

because of the animals that we have. So like the first holiday I had with my family was about when I was about 11 and we went to Florida, which was this like flying blowing going from never having a leaven. Disney world and yeah that was just it was just immense. Yeah I bet chronologically then that works quite well. Something Joanna and I've talked about and quite a lot of our discussions about the Witches books is this kind of natural draws that a lot of teenage girls have towards witchcraft and kind of why that happens. And did you two either of you, both of you, kind of feel that draw towards the subject as either teenagers? I feel that's more of a, like, I think it's a bit cyclical being to a witchcraft, and

it feels like the thing that's happening at the moment, like it's a cycle that's come round again, like cozy core, cottage core, that kind of thing is really invoked. I was drawn to things like astrology. I definitely went to astrology phase. Were I doing like, you know, astrology charts

or people and stuff. Yeah, I probably dabbled in witchcraft without even knowing it. My mom is a reflexologist and a Roma therapist, so she's always been into natural healing so I kind of grew up with that, known all the right herbs for all different kinds of ailments and the right herbs and oils and all the rest of it, through mum and granny, my Irish Granny. My English Granny was a bit more, a lot more ogish actually. She actually was a warden for elderly people sheltered housing and I used to go

around the houses with her basically where she'd go. The house and kind of visit all of the elderly people that she looked after, you know, cutting tornales and everything. So I mean, I realized this is very, yeah, very discworld witchy. But yeah, the more kind of dressing in black and being mysterious and yeah, I think I think a lot of people do go through that in their 13 years. And I certainly certainly did as well. Might have cast a spell or two. Who can remember?

Who isn't? You're creating your teens and then you just pick it up again in your foot. A lot of black and silver jewelry as well. Yeah, the bit start for the 40s hit, the bit start falling off. You turn to witchcraft. Yeah. And a puzzle witchcraft. So you both talked about, you know, you collaborated,

you kind of divvied up the book in a certain way. When you were sort of starting to do that planning, what were like the biggest themes you really felt were important to have into the book? We found magic to us was the least important thing. So we did have a chapter on magic, but we thought yeah, the big show magic is not what witches in this world are about and we break down what are they about, they're about kind of guarding the edges, there's a lot about the power of the lands, there's so much about the land in the books.

And yeah, the going around the house is doing the kind of community stuff and the jobs that the people don't want to do. All kind of felt like very important and stuff to us to have in there. Of course, there was the whole chapter that popped up mainly because Paul could be wanted to draw all the things in that chapter, which I think fitted in wonderfully as well. Which one was coming in, but what that chapter was called? That was a monster. There are gods and monsters. Yeah, on gods and other monsters, that one. There's been a lot of art. A lot of writing that we've done for the one-tall artwork that Paul did. I was really excited to see the painting of a noya rising from the cutlery draw, especially because we've just hit the point in the books where we meet the goddess a noya.

Oh, ex, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's some. Yeah, that's just look like that. Yeah. I've been looking through. I'm like, who looks like who? I've definitely like you look at some of the phases. You're like, you look very familiar. I decided to kind of hint of Julie Andrews. Interesting.

I think there's a bit of indeed Roboma in there as well. Yes, it's. Yeah, that's a bit of indeed revarmor in there as well. Yeah, I'm just showing. And Joan Hickston is constant level as well. Oh, lovely. Joan Hickston, who is, I don't know whether she was the first Miss Marple, but certainly from the black and white era of Miss Marple, but her face works really well. And there are other faces which just like, I look at them, I think I know who that is. I just have a name. But yeah, Paul's which face is it always wonderful. And I actually love the the love concerts level one because partly because I got to name her because we went through the books when we realized that she was never given a first name and there were characters that were never given first names so we named them so constants level

and Maeve who was the name of the Kelder and we frequent that's never even a name but other Kelder's I think the Kelder and Copy Junkie Lem. So yeah, it was kind of fun to be able to just fill in a few little gaps like that. Constance level apps definitely. Yeah, very few liberties we took. So if anyone's allowed to name these characters. Exactly, absolutely. So this is the first time we've had visual representations are quite a lot of the witches. Were there any, like, really quite excited to see what Paul would do with them,

like, especially things like Hilda Goekfinder and Goodie Wemper? Yeah, I mean, we've had a bit of discussion as well about kind of, um, top diversity in the witches as well. I wanted to kind of see some, um, the racial diversity among them. And, you know, a hilt I think is absolutely wonderful with some suggestions, and then Paul just created this amazing character. I mean, that hilt looks absolutely fantastic in full-page image. Oh, Chessa, my Chessa was really great to see the carbon picture as well.

That's one of my favourite. I love the cover one. Yeah. We leave so suspiciously absent. Antagorama. Yeah. But yeah, we kept. That was one where we could all what you're going to do.

And then we just sort of like folded it into the narrative of the world. It absolutely worked as perfectly as if it had to been designed that way. Yeah, they didn't want anagrammer pausing for the picture with them, did they? Oh yeah, they all managed to forget to let in all that paul was doing the illustration. I like the way that paul was kind of into Desk World for the sake of this book. But that would be fun. Yeah. So we went meta. Yes, exactly. So he's working for the Gord Tronders.

And we had, yeah, we thought was interesting. So Paul always draws the Fiegel's blue. And of course the Fiegel's are just blue because they're covered in so many tattoos, but could you imagine having to sit and draw really intricate tattoos on every fiegle so obviously then just painted blue but we thought we'd weave that in as well with the three paints then blue is just because they were drinking all the white spirits and turps they could ban them. I'm just not going to point out because otherwise someone will email in, it's goat burger. Go burger, sorry, did I say go? It's because we're just talking about hiltigawd bones. There's a lot of going with stuff and stuff and stuff.

And after we came at the end, we're like, it's really just about bees, isn't it? It's all about bees. It's all about bees, isn't it? It's all about bees. It's all about bees, definitely. It's a realisation we came to. I think near the end is that if you don't realise how important bees are, you've not been paying attention or something like that, wasn't it? It was like even more about bees than we thought it was, and we already thought it was kind of about a lot of about bees. Yeah.

Really bee and goat heavy, I think that's good. Yeah. Yeah, really is my childhood. It was probably not as much about chickens. So our chickens that pop up with the different baking books. But yeah, my childhood was a bit more chicken heavy than gotten to books. But the goats, I think, were a big. They were a very significant part of growing up for quite a bit of time.

It's very weird when we eventually decide to stop keeping goats because we basically need to have a life and go to a lot of work. But yeah, having that rural existence, and I feel very privileged to have had that because I didn't, I was able to run around in nature and climb trees and fall out of them and kind of play with goats and we didn't have very much money but I didn't care because I had goats to play with and I valued them and trees to climb and stuff. And you know, where you're small and you grow up and you're kind of like that's everything. And I was always like creating invisible friends and stuff, but I kind of did it to entertain my parents. Like I knew there would go, oh look

it's sweet little girl, talking to a visible friend. I'm like, oh, I love that. Being a whimsical girl but knowing it. Second and third thought, solid one. You sort of pop it in your diary three o'clock, be whimsical fifteen minutes. So I'm assuming the illustration process for this wasn't quite as complex and didn't involve as much driving as when Paul was doing the last hero. So we sort of put down notes about what we thought would be good for illustrations in the chapter and things that we'd quite like to be illustrated. And I said, Paul contributed stuff as well. I think it was a case of basically Robert to wrench the pen out of his hand. It was sort of lovely that it was so into it that there were things that he wanted to put in as well. And yeah, so it was, it took all sort of a while, things would sort of drop in over time.

So we would sort of keep editing, we'd see bits and pieces of this, this and that. And Alex was sort of setting stuff out and we I think we had a chapter might have been a tire that we did quite early on to kind of lay it out and put some images in to give an idea to the publisher of what it was going to look like. Alex used to say the art director who pulled it all together so beautifully and he was very much the goal between us and Paul I think because we are very excitable and would just be getting Paul to draw all kinds of stuff and then Paul would be very excitable and we want to write stuff into it so I think I look in between, manage to manage the writers and

the artist on the other day. Probably refreshing for him must be nice going, oh my god he's so good at painting, they can do more. It was just amazing. Even, I'm not until the book landed, did I? I mean, I knew it was, it was beautiful, but just when it lands the last week to just, you know, a volume of work in there and just the, the art is, it's just absolutely stunning with sort of delighted, um, you put everything poles done to bring our words to

life. It's amazing. It is lovely. So when you were collaborating on the writing side of it, did you find yourself naturally falling into which bits you would write or did you kind of swap around a lot? There was a little bit of stopping around, but not much because we laid out all the chapters that we thought there would be. There wasn't, there was only a few more added and a few broke down into addition. I think there's some times that we were in the middle of a chapter and we think, oh, this is going to be a big one, let's let's, you know, like having the figures to their own chapter was one that came out through the writing process. But I tend to think,

can we have a tendency to lean towards more, what I would consider more serious subjects, and I tend to lean towards what I would consider slightly, slightly more frivolous subjects, like a tire, and things like that, and campaign, attire and things like that and campaign and companions and things like that. But actually, you know, Gabby managed beautifully to find the lightness in the more serious subjects and I was a dung and fans and what's the riskness with light. Yeah, there's some great pathos in there as well. I was worried though when we laid out all the

chapters and I thought, oh, you know, I'm sure he's going to want to do the ones that I want to do. And then when we started pulling out the ones who want to do about this is this is great. We pretty much both got exactly what we wanted. And I want to write about hats and boots. I want to make people cry. I'll live for it. Who wrote the little annotations? Was it one person's stroke or both? Yeah, all of us. All two of us.

Yeah. Maybe we both wrote them. Oh, lovely. Doing the... I'd say the majority came as we were doing chapters and then we would go through them as we were editing we'd go through and we'd add new stuff in as we were reading. So yeah there was usually one, there are several passes on the annotations you know and particularly with the conversational ones as well.

Oh yeah, the bickering on page is great. It's a really lovely way to bring granny and nanny into the book and have their voices there. It was with bits that we were reading. Yeah, we'd say, oh, there's no way Nanny Og would let that go. So we'd write it. There's no way granny weatherlacks wouldn't pull her up on that yeah I've not had time yet but I'm determined to work out what's behind the scribbled out paragraph

so I'll go ahead. I've done a lot of squinting at this in a flattering way so in DuraVarmus narrating the audio book for this as well and Rihanna, you're providing the voice of Lettuce Rweige. Yes, I am, that was a lot of fun to do and Gab wrote Lettuce so beautifully and it was like a really nice collaborative and she, I think Lettuce came in later. Is it right at the end actually? Lett us was a late edition because I think we initially had Tiff making slightly snide or or spill word comments that were and nod towards lettuce. And so then we thought, okay, actually we can do more of this. And like, I really think that Gabby was channeling something deep within herself. Well, they're driving us, yeah. They're really passive aggressive.

They have a really fun to voice, and I'm a frustrated bit a kid anyway. It was the rest of it. I've just heard you do her first little bit where she supplies her notes to Gortberger. So I've still got to hear the rest of your... Yeah, I haven't heard it yet. But yeah, that was a lot of fun and I also read the introduction and I've been doing more of that this year. Anyway, I've been reading some short stories for pseudo-pod,

which is a horror podcast. I read the money tree for Stroke of the Pen. And yeah, I've got a radio show coming out next month, which I will, like, I'll be able to talk about in more detail, but yeah, so it's been a, like, quite vocally active. Yeah, left, left, this is the one that's just most fun and I love the most because it doesn't sound like me. And I don't really like my voice that much, but if I can get into a good character, then it's like, listen most because it doesn't sound like me and I don't really like my voice that much but if I can get into a good character then it's like listen because it doesn't sound like me at all and then I... it's really good I was really impressed with that but I was like going for Gabby down the phone gate. Did you think it's so much sound?

Sam. Of course, as well, the indie revama is reading our words. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm a huge rock. I really love her and everything, game of thrones and all be one. And she's amazing. My mother-in-law loved her in the bodyward bride and prejudice as well, which is what she knows her from. But yeah, she's amazing. And she's reading our words. And she liked my

post on Instagram and I went to follow her and she was already following me. Gavin, I'm sure there's a official adirro album at the fan club, but we have our own personal adirro album at the fan club. I think the way that mistake looks a little bit like in Dirro Rama. Yeah. And yeah. So that was been a lot of fun and we actually didn't know that there was going to be an audible version for a while.

So yeah, but yeah, I saw so an opportunity to get some acting in and yeah, like I've enjoyed doing a lot of vocal work this year, so I might try and explore how the news for doing a little bit more of that. It's very cheeky question, but would you mind giving us a line of your, I'll wait a second. I can do the first one, which is the first one time you see here in the book. Do you admit to go out there there? Is the author of many best-selling books on which craft, such as first flights in which craft, with higher magic, May fairy fiends, and to read a golden boon stick.

Imagine my surprise when I was not consulted on your most recent acquisition guide to being a witch by young Tiffany Eaking. I have managed to have gathered myself a number of pages from this guide and I should have discovered new way of admissions and inaccuracies. Please find and include my corrections for inclusion. I also include my card, children wish to further evade yourself of my extensive knowledge of magic, which craft invisibly regards and is let us,

our witch. Beautiful. Incredible. I hear the K. I love it. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Oh, I'm looking forward to the audio back now. So you had a real opportunity as you were working on the book to flesh out that Lankar and the world of the witches specifically in Discord a lot more. Was finding new details to add something that kind of came up organically?

Was it something you were looking for and looking to do? Sometimes geography was a little hard. It was just like, okay, it's a long, it's a long man, it's a long man, it's a long man, it's a lady's the same long man in the chalk, are they different long men, and are they like linked somehow? Is it like gnarly ground, but I think there is only one long land but it's not sort of clear quite clear how it. I think we did we thought it might be too initially and then like I think we discovered it was it was the same long long land. In Mankron then on the chalk, it's the chalk carving of the giant. That's nice. And I think we were trying to work out kind of the Queen in Lawson Ladies. Is she nightshade that's just never given a name?

So therefore, has she encountered Granny Weather Max before and I believe that initially she wasn't supposed to be and then dad with Sheppard's crown kind of went back and sort of decided that she was so sometimes it was like sewing bits and pieces together like with you, for example, I think the cat, yeah, tell them about you. Oh, the use, yeah, it was going backwards and forwards through the books. And so I was, yeah, researching you and went Tiffany gave you to Granny Weather Works. And then when I was reading one of the earlier books. There was mention of one of the later ones. Yes, it was one of the later ones. It was mentioned about the widow cable who had died and her cat had had a litter of kittens in her beds and typically

to feel like kittens with beautiful blue eyes and she had a terrible, but because their owner had died and there was no food for them, they started to eat the body. They were very practical in that way. And Tiffany said she had terrible time finding homes for them because of people knowing the story. And then I realized, wait a minute, these were pure white cats with blue eyes and she had to find homes for them.

Was one of these you that was given to Granny Weather Works. We went backwards and forwards a few times, we're consulting with Rob Wilkins and we came to the conclusion that yes, this must be you was one of the kittens born on the widow cables bed. So it was really wanting to get to the floor. There's a lot of forensic going back and forth between the books and references and things like that. And... Court Board.

That's a string moment. Yeah, because the first gap had been doing a fair bit of research anyway for some website stuff. You were quite deep into research mode, I think, anyway, which really helped. Yeah, just even to be able to piece together all of the storm circles and things as well in which storm circles were made of what kind of iron or stone and tying all of those together. So that whole power of the land chapter came out of that just trying to sort of piece together the geography as well and there's so much gnarly ground in the round tops as well

because of when the disk was formed, the land getting brushed together and areas of magical and compressed and creative the areas of gnarly ground. So it was fun actually sort of exploring the land, like you were saying, and figuring out how that affects magic on the disk. You know, practically every sentence in some of these chapters

required a deep dive to someone. Just a kind of single mention of things in very early books. But I can't be where I've found it, but there was information about that, that's how the round tops tops were formed and that's why it's so magical because of when these mountains were formed there was so much magical ground crushed. It's got to be like being equal, right? Yeah. Why so so many witches come from the round tops? Exactly and wizards as well, the ridcally. That's fun, that's like a dream, isn't it?

You read Cully. That's so fun. That's a good dream, isn't it? I love the way you built more on, especially the almost witches characters, and they got fleshed out a bit. I mean, I'm always really excited when Rosie Palm turns up and anything. But I love what you did with Jeffrey as well. Oh, yeah. I'm glad we got to do, you know, the onshedseds for Jeffrey and then a bit more space and get metastockles

in there as well. I'm making sure you have an extra goat. Nanny having a moment of working out pronouns in the yeah, and aside I loved as well, yeah. But we actually look to monstrous regiment for that because we with Jack from when Polly finds out that that Jack from was was born a woman and has lived their life as a man for a

brief period of time the pronouns change to she her. And then when Jack from basically decides that no, he will go back and see his son as his father, like his mother, they go back to he, him. So when Tiffany is talking about Jeffrey, initially she starts as he and tells she said and how, you know, I asked her about it and Jeffrey said they don't really feel like, yeah, and then the man or a woman, I'm just me. And so the text just refers to her to Jeffrey from that point as either Jeffrey or they then, which is not like that, that was kind of in keeping with they then, which was kind of in keeping with how pronouns are used to kind of underline character. And it was nice for the Jeffrey to get that, their knowledge of sheds and that they're kind of matching, but that they're, my father was very sheddy and he became from a family of big shedders.

So that was very magical to dad. So it was a nice, it was a very nice practical thing. And yeah, there's something very comforting about sheds as well. And there are sort of like, there are male space, but they're in as well. And they're sort of like, they're a male space, but they're in some ways, but they're also kind of, you know, they're catering to their little foibles and having the kettle and the biscuits

and they tidy all the things, although they're having creative projects and they're just a microcosm of a life in a mental landscape, Shed's are quite joyful. So, I'm enjoying doing the little Jeffrey on Shed's bit. I was impressed also by the towering Shed. I'm like illustration that. Great image. I'd say something you see on the battle field, a medieval battle field. That's the lights far too dimmed for you looking at picture here. The shed of doom, that's what it's called. That's the source of shed I want. I was almost last heroish, wasn't it? The chapter starts with such an ordinary looking shed that could almost be from an

Argoscap into them. Yeah definitely shows that mental landscape spectrum. I've got some shedish tendencies in itself. Would there any parts of the book you found particularly hard to write, especially that you might not have been expecting? I think not so much hard to write just maybe elicited a bit more emotion than we. Yeah, the intranet and the outro, I think, were quite emotional. Yeah.

Brandy's note as well at the start. Yeah, I don't remember any being super hard whilst writing them, but there was such a lot of research, there was such a lot of back and forth and kind of reaching through the various texts. So we had all the text on like a Kindle raider so we could try and check references and sometimes words would not be like, hydrology, which book do you find a hydrology would not was not searchable? None of them. Yeah, because we were bringing them up and then searching through the chat just in a word search to find the exact

things we needed. But hydrology for some reason would not search. Sure, hydrology was mentioned somewhere in these five, but we couldn't search that. So I had to, anything reference in hydrology, I had to go through and... Yes, manually. And if they ended up using a special character for some reason. Is that all?

Yeah. And I have no idea why hydrology wouldn't, because other words, like Boffor, you'd like, Boffor, but not... Fav-Fav-Favley Common Word because other words like Boffor, you'd like to urge Boffor but not heavily common word, of course, but yeah, we did have some emotional moments when writing, particularly I think we I don't think we ever got three reading out the last, the outro without shedding tears, did we? That was a way, yeah, that was, we would read out the chapters to each other, and I think with that one, we were both drinking whiskey and sobbing over Zoom.

But yeah, it was just, it was just so much fun. And yeah, I hope that's like the joy come, the joy of two friends creating this comes through in the text as well, because it's done with so much love for the characters and for the world. And yeah, it was just it just, it was like really just came together. Everyone's kind of enthusiasm for it. And yeah, it was perfect. I mean, we kind of grew up with the witches, I think, from the meets and it's just, yeah, that's it. Yeah, I mean, you've put a lot of the little the wisdoms and the phrasing and the characters that have spread out over all these years of Desk World Books and which, you know, embedded in so many of us are conscious because we grew up with the witches and they make a part of everybody who reads these books.

And yeah, just to have them all in one place is really exciting, like, yeah, the liminal and the land part, the parrots of land, and the filling things that are empty, and the, yeah. I also hope this might encourage people to read the Shepherd's Crown now, because they know that something afterwards. I hope so. People so I don't want to read it it because it's the last one. It's just like, well, you've got this now

as a little bow on top of it. Although that would be they didn't read it. But yeah, maybe they would just have it and look at pictures. Refuse, let their eyes focus on the words. Yeah, I do find it odd that people, I know they mean, I know they don't want it to be over, so they won't read the chapter. You're depriving yourself of, you know, of finishing that series. And I really great story. Yeah, don't read Tiffany Eirking's guide to be in a way.

Yeah. And then you shall just over. And then start them all over again. Like you know, like you don't have to stop at that point. Just go exactly. But that's not never ends because he just then start them all over again. Like you know, like you don't have to stop at that point. Exactly. It's not never ends because he just eating this. Well, Ronsey doesn't know that I'm going to force it to go back to colour of magic after we've done that.

No, I probably I wouldn't do that. Let me start the long earth here. So onto some of the questions we ask everyone and this one's a little bit more for you, Gabrielle, which is what's your Pratchett origin story? It's a Pratchett origin. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. My was, so it was around my friend Helen Phillips house in, was it like first or second year

seniors, I think so, in the late 80s and yeah, we were both into reading, I was looking through some of the books on the shelves and I recognised Josh Kirby's art style, because I'd seen my dad had a copy of more to line around at home and I thought, because I was very into art and illustration, but that's very interesting style. And I saw it at her house and she started telling me about this, yeah, I think there was only, was there just colored magic and like fantastic out at that point? No, because more was out, so yeah, there was four books out.

So she lent me the light fantastic, which I didn't realise was the second book in the series. I think she'd said there was one previous to it, but I it wasn't on the shelves and I was desperate to lend one. So I ended up reading light fantastic before Color of Magic. I loved it. Didn't make much sense because I'd missed Color of Magic, I think you had to have read Color of Magic, reading before light fantastic. That might read Call of Magic really before like that. That might be the only reading order I've not seen recommended so far.

That's great. So I read that then read Call of Magic. And I was like, yeah, actually, these are good. Then I read more, and it's not that I pinched the copy and seen lying around at home and read that for, oh, yeah, this is really good. And then when I went back then and read equal rights, I was absolutely hooked on the witches, but it was dad was so pleased because suddenly I was reading the same books the

thing was. So I'd gone from, you know, kind of kids books to, you know, suddenly reading the same yet books that he was really passionate about. So it was a real bonding thing for me and my dad actually. When I, yeah, we were talking about more to lot and then he started pulling out this world book as they came out and discussed them. So yeah, it all went from being at my mate's house and just recognizing Josh Kirby's art style from a book I'd seen at home. Yeah, so I probably didn't start the idea always starting with a thick, then-color and magic. It was good enough that that worked anyway,

so that's how something does it. It's just sort of different from what other fancy writers were doing at the time, which is kind of a lot more kind of misogynistic and women weren't treated great in sort of fantasy worlds back then. I used to like the Piaz Anthony's aunt but I don't know who read those which is I did like a more humorous fantasy but yeah absolutely we saw from then on and who knew that some I'm in the new unit, so I believe daughter, yes, like, sorry. Yeah, and end up writing a discolored book with it. It's absolutely nuts. I can't believe it. Still, even though the book is sitting here in front of me,

I can't believe that. Can confirm also in front of us, so it does seem to be real. They actually met Terry Pratchett, a der Signing for the last continent in I think it was about 1998 and I was wearing an armouring at the time as quite gothe and he was admiring this armouring and saying how much his daughter would like it and again I hadn't no idea they would come into my life.

Was that you you told a story at the British Library event about assigning that ended involved your Terry Pratchett calling your dad a name. Yes it was that same signing. Am I allowed to say that word? Yes absolutely. I did worry at the British Library when I was in the audience. In question. Yeah it was that signing, dad had brought along all of his books, he had a big rucksack full of dis-world books. And we're queuing for hours. I mean, the queue was way down the street.

It was absolutely insane. I brought along small gods as well for him to sign, except he loves small gods as well as the last continent. So yeah, we're queuing for a while. My dad's very ribquely in appearance. And so was a guy in front of him in the queue, and I think he saw my dad and thought he's very rib-coly. So he was trying to out- rid-coly my dad, so if he can, I'm trying to out- rid-coly-age. I was very loud. But when we got to the front, dad got all his books signed. So Terry was very, very kind to sign them all

when there was a big pile and a huge queue. And then my dad stopped hacking his books up. And I was quite goffy at the time. So Terry looked at me and said, are you a goff? And I said, yes. Well, I don't really like to put labels on it. And Rihanna still pointed out that that was a very goppy thing. I got what he said.

Yeah. So I suppose you've got some kind of a fantastic magical a name, have you, like, a, a reminter or, and I said, no, Carol. So I was actually called Carol Kent at the time. I did change my first name. Yeah. So he just looked at me and said, Carol, what

could hold you, Carol? I don't know, but nodding towards my dad who was packing up all of these. Sorry, dad. Got any book signed to Carol? It does mean I've got books. Small gods and last continent are signed to Carol. I've had been thinking of change my name because that was my final year at uni. That absolutely made up my mind. I'll do it. Yeah, so I changed my name after that and I've been Gabrielle ever since. But he did suggest Purdita.

In fact, we both suggested Purdita around the same time because I loved the book, The Witch's Daughter, it was a wonderful book that I read when I was a kid and I hadn't actually read Masquerade at that point, so I didn't actually realise that Purdita was a character in this world, but yeah, I didn't go with that suggestion, but Gabrielle has suited me well and no one's asked what Wanga called me Gabrielle. Very awkward if anyone ever does and you have to point to yourself. Oh yes. It's going to make so much self-control never to say that when I introduce myself somebody in the future. That's fantastic. And then Rihanna, I've had an interview before we said, you came to Discworld books, you got into it after you heard it on the radio?

Yeah, I even must have been, I think it was 84 and 86 that kind of magic and equal rights serialized on woman's hour. So I was about 10. And yeah, I was just very amazed because I don't think I've really paid much attention to what my dad did because I think it's, you don't really as a kid. You kind of pay attention to sort of what they do for you, whether they play with you, and he would always build many things as well. He was very, like, he came from a family that used to build toys for, you know, parents to build toys for their kids.

And so he would, he built their B hive with rubber bees. He got this, I think he just found the rubber bees and the B hive came from the Moomin Valley and the Moomin House and all the Moomin's outplay and kind of Wendy House and a market stall as well and like an August style stove like an August style stove and so he was always kind of building things but yeah it was my mom listened to women's out of it and she said, oh my god, women's hours are sacred in our house, so I was like, oh he must be doing something really cool to be on women's out. I take the hair, take off the rain, this bright, I evenemote with a bright yellow tape and I just listen to it over and over again. I think I'd heard him say that he'd based, um, uh, S on me when I, when I was just a few years younger than I was when, when I was listening to it. And so I think that

kind of intrigued me as well. Oh, yeah, there must be surreal. Fantastic. So for both of you, who would you say is your favourite disc world which? Well, I mean we were talking about that like the British library because I think you said Granny Weather Act and I said Nanny York. But yeah, I built on that later in that I think Nanny York can take Granny Weatheritherwax in a way that Granny Witherwax can't take Nanny Og. I think Dad's really interesting. You know, they're all wonderful. It's very difficult to kind of choose.

But I think I appreciated Granny where there were like some more as I got older. Where I think Nanny on just hits the ground running in terms of people's love. Yeah. Um, and I think, you know, with, with Grebo and, uh, just, and, and the, the bench is cast and under. And, uh, yeah, it's just so much great. It, it's, it's the, yeah, she works so well as a double act with with Granny Weyloax. I mean it's terrible neither of us had Tiffany but it's kind of like obviously she wasn't the first witch I came to and actually F- F-

was, um, and then and then granny weather wax but yeah, nothing on really sticks with it. She is very sticky. Yeah. I think this is something to love in all of the witches really isn't that. I mean I love that. I do love grannymys' stubbornness that even if she's kind of aware she's in the wrong, if that's something a little just, yeah, double down on this. Yeah, I think it was a lot for me.

I have to, sorry. I know Zergis, I have to say the conversation is very edifying for me because Nanny Augustin, the most powerful witch has been a running like thesis on the podcast and yeah. Oh, wait, sisters. Joanne has been slowly trying to persuade me of it and I guess now it's canon so you win. Yeah. That said it.

I think was it in the fishes? I think it was in the little fishes. Yeah, where I think she's born of the witches, isn't there? She's got a witchy family, but yeah, what she works does as well, doesn't she? But she's got to, it comes more naturally to Tynaniog and Raniweta, to fight for, yeah. I think that the kind of history of Naniog's, like, very deep history, which, witchcraft, doesn't it? Because it kind of goes into the long man and all of the augum stuff doesn't it? So yeah. So there's definitely, there's definitely probably room for kind of the adventures of young and young. I would have lost it. The first ever triple x-ray

to discwirl. Yeah, exactly. We kept in a back. I was one big redacted page in the industry of the the more org painting. So. I was more painted her. See Fab. And then the next favorite spoon question is your favorite or your top key favorite discreet books.

I know that. that changes for everybody almost on the screen answer today. Probably for me maybe which is a broad in the witch's race maybe which is a broad and carpejuggling but also monstrous regimen as well but yeah carpejuggling andichita brought from the Witches series. Yeah, and I have a big soft spot for Monster's Regiment as well. Yeah, definitely Witches abroad and Monster's Regiment. Small Gods, I was studying philosophy when I read that. Philosophy era.

So it was like perfect. I absolutely fell in love with that at that point. Nightwatch is just absolutely wonderful as well with my favorites. Oh god, there's too many. I mean, how? The Witcher series, I think, is... Choose beyond that. Yeah, I was like, which is a broad, I think, it's, you don't like choose beyond that. Yeah, yeah. I was saying, which is abroad, I think, is possibly actually made of all the books.

I've been stitches nice. It's not a lot of plastic. No, you're okay. Yeah, and that's all grimoire translation, isn't it? Yeah, which is a... Yeah. That's responsible for some poor choices made in my dating history. Yeah, I can see that. And then a couple of like books, specific, uh, little

favorite-ish questions. There's a whole chapter on the kind of the power of the land and is there any particular land or part of the country or part of the world that you kind of feel most at home or most powerful on? Hmm. Ah. I mean, my my mom lives on the chalk. So, so the the chalk is is based on rural wheelchair. And although we didn't we grew up, did a lot of our over. I was a weak like you know because my parents, uh, Marick, quite young and, uh, were kind of self-sufficient

and, and trembling long, um, having, having found as a young couple for a while before I came along me. So I we, I grew up in Somerset and, um, to Wiltshire when I was about 16, but I spent a long time going back and forth to Wiltshire because that's where my mother's mum lived. And we ended up sort of living in like a couple of very small villages away from my grandmother who was the shepherd. So the chalk is like we had a we had a shepherd's heart and I remember going into the shepherd's heart with Dad because I think I haven't seen it since it had been finished and we went into to have a look and it was actually used by the shepherd and I think still is used by his wife when there's lambing going on in the fields because we do we have land that we graze sheep on, like a local Shepherd graze, graze is sheep on. And we were in the Shepherd's hut looking around and we looked out of

the window and we saw a distressed sheep and it was a sheep that had just managed to get itself caught in a load of brambles and it was raining and it was just soggy and it had just got caught and then we went and rescued the sheep and it was like being in the shepherd's hut gave us some kind of sheep like shepherd vision bridges dress yeah that we got this really soggy and greyscared sheep out a bramble bush so yeah that's uh that's definitely got that's definitely sort of inspires me I think, but I also live kind of in the middle of London as well, which So I think in time very, very northern. I've always lived in the northeastern England actually and yeah, but reasonably near the course and I just, I mean, I do love the northeastern England and the course lines along here. So I do feel

along here. So I do feel very much a Northeastern girl, but also in Ireland, my grandma being from Goldware County, so you know, kind of write out in the countryside, I feel very much more kind of, I feel the power there. And just all the stories the land has there. So at the entrance to my granny's farm, there was a wooded area that the list was called. And everyone in the family has stories of things that happened in the list. My uncle saw a monk, me and my cousin went in. He always felt a bit kind of nervous when he went in.

It just seemed so much darker in this little wooded area. And myself and my American cousin, we decided to beat a path around the list to conquer our fear of it. So we went around singing and beating with the brambles back with sticks until we had a you know circle around the list. There was a big mound in the centre which I think we now know some kind of a burial. I think we now know some kind of burial. We'll get our fear of the list. We'd gone in round about lit morning. When we came out, it was, you know, we were in there for, it was about an hour, we thought, stepped out, it was, it was pitch black, it was about six o'clock at night, everyone was out looking for us. So we've been going on second hours, and the time we thought was about four to five.

My granny was saying, oh,, you went round three times. Yes. And you were singing all the time. Yes, you went with a shins, what was with a shins? Auntie Cocoa, so yeah, we went Auntie Cocoa, so you said, not right. So obviously you were zapped into fairyland, but that's all that. So yeah, obviously I was zapped into fairyland but that's a lot. So yeah obviously I was sucked into fairyland over in Ireland, who knows what happened in those hours we were there, but I mean that's just the stories of the

land there that all of this was you know my granny was quite you know there's quite a typical occurrence for someone to go three times with theish in around a burial mound and end up very bad. I thought, do that again, girls. Yeah, I really kind of feel that the power of the land over in goldware. That was beautiful. Fantastic. And then do you have any, not witchy attire necessarily, but staples of attire that make you feel powerful

or witchy like, you know, a good pair of boots, I'm sure has to be, a good pair of boots, I'm sure, has to be. Definitely good pair of boots and black, I think black does just see it wearing midnight does make you feel more powerful, doesn't it? Yeah. I tend to like, I wear jewelry of kind of, I guess, slightly more witchy creatures,

like I've got a bat ring, I've got a spider ring, I have a snake necklace, I have a rave and necklace that Gabb gave me. So yeah, that can be a wearing a shawl at the moment that my friend crocheted. That's good in this weather, it's getting cold down in London. Yeah, I like a bit of light. I like my boots more. What it was, the kind of nanny, Nanny Augusta, the boots. And I always feel that I'm taller than I actually am. But I guess there's a good thing.

But yeah, I'm very, I'm very boot-y. Good boots in midnight. And I like a bit of chunky jewellery as chunky silver as well. Yeah, it always makes me feel a bit more powerful and elegant. You tweeted, Rihanna, I think you tweeted about choosing the hair as your signature stamp. Could you explain like what the hair and that context means to you? Well, the hair runs into the fire and it felt like I was running into the fire that you know, writing for Discord as as Patrick Jr. So that's what kind of drew me to it. Yeah, a lot of eyes on you, I think, you're first for into Discord. So yeah, it was definitely,

definitely jumping into the fire, but you can't be at the side unscathed. Yeah, and with Gavin the horse, the horse comes to Tiffany's aid, or at least spiritually as well, so that's felt for our appropriate for Gavin. Yeah, we've adapted the two as our stamps for the book. Pretty beautiful. Yeah, I love the two. Are there any plans to create more books in the style in the future? We've got a few ideas, but yeah, we're not sure I think it really depends on how well this one does.

And so, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Like the, the, the, the, the adventures of not a young Nanny old like, oh, wait, we come up. I think, I think, Horace the Cheese and the Magic Sossage, yeah, we've made a great choice. But they're going to be able to imagine that we were giving out at the British Library. Or as the matches with the Tunes, yeah, pink sauce. The picture.

Yeah. Which, which it like caused what is Gab's favourite piece of editorial feedback? Yeah, it did come back that I think someone that penguins asked it Paul could possibly make the sausage pig a bit less fallet. Yeah, it was actually, yeah, I did look back at the original master, but okay, yes, it was a fairly phallic. Another author, who is an editor, Louis Stowell, and she said, oh, if I had a pound for every time,

I had to give the feedback, could you make X less phallic please? It's very rich, it seems like it's quite common publisher feedback it seems actually. Yeah, I guess maybe you don't see it when you're in the midst of drawing something. It's like that little mermaid phs cover isn't it, the castle that looked slightly very phallic like yeah. Obviously we only you've been very vocal about having the luxury of saying no and being a really excellent caretaker of the estate but are there hopes for there to be more sort of screen adaptations and things in the future. It's fine it you know I've been worked on a few things behind the scenes I've actually done a lot of work behind the scenes on things and it's just finding the right home and the right people to work with and yeah the ability to sort of say no and to know when to step away. And it's been

tough, it's been tough because it's such a unique property and there's one of the biggest relatively untapped fantasy IPs. And, you know, we've had a lot of fantasy offerings out there with Game of Thrones, with Ring of Kahn, it felt like something like this world, which, you know, satirizes fantasy. So, well, whilst also bringing in its own kind of blend of humor and philosophy and wisdom was very, you know, it is something that I think audiences would really enjoy. It's just finding people that also agree and will give us money to help us make it. Like we have lots of ideas and I actually have been adapting books to screen for a while before I actually narrative it was formed. So I've done what in terms of development.

So I've kind of started to specialise in that to a point anyway. So I try and bring the skills that I learnt during doing that. But yeah, it's just finding the right home. It's a difficult business out there, even if you've got a big IP, it's just, yeah, everyone's very cautious at the moment. And I have seen a pilot that Rihanna has written for something disquelled, and I have to say it is fantastic, and I really do hope that finds a home because the world needs to see what you have written, Rihanna. I suppose the obvious sub question for that for Rihanna actually would be,

is there any funds for any more disquelled games? There's no is the short answer. It kind and the it sort of gets tangled up in rights issues is the longer boring answer because you know we've been developing certain things and sometimes you need to leave rights free for stuff. We've also never and this was true in Dad's lifetime, aside from the existing Disworld games, actually getting a pitch that felt right to Dad, like they never had a pitch that felt good enough. We've never seen anything since then. We've certainly had people asking,

and people were interested in trying to get the oldest world games onto something like, Nidei, or Gog, or something, but we don't own the rights of them. Like we own the rights of the characters, but we can't put anything or we know, we can tick it off, but because studios have been bought and sold over the years, it's not clear where the rights of the games are. We think maybe with Sony, but it's a bit unclear. I was actually at Thought Bubble comic con this weekend and ended up having a conversation earlier today

with someone about Discworld and they were talking about Discworld board games. They're talking about food. Oh yeah. I learned a lot of my day playing that. I think it's the same that I think food's kind of disappeared and actually actually sells for quite a lot of my day playing that. I'm saying that, I think, fun's kind of disappeared and actually actually sells for quite a bit of money now. So a lot of people are quite keen to get their hands on food.

And so there is actually a board game community that really would like more dis-world board games out there as well, which is something I hadn't realized that thought had such a big family. I'd love an online version of that, actually, as well. That would be amazing, because trying to learn on my own is very hard. I was trying to hunt a copy of God's Gods. It was the only Discord ballgame I didn't have. And in the process that UK Games Expo met a lot of fellow Discord fans. And then elbowed them out of the way and the second hand stuff. I can buy new friends. I think there's so much scope isn't there for Desquil?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you could just imagine so many games, films, TV screens, to come out of it. Yeah, that's the almost overwhelming actually, it's trying to think about all the possibilities of ours. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of them. Is there anything we haven't covered about the book or the writing process or anything that you'd like to talk about?

Ooh, don't think so. And we've covered a lot. It feels like we've done a proper, good, deep dive into things. Yeah, I think we have. So yeah, it was interesting process. And the fact that, yeah, I think we have covered it all. It just works so well together. It really is.

It's weird kind of reading through it now. And I'll be reading, I'll be reading one of your chapters. And then I'll certainly think, wait a minute, this feels a bit like me. And then I really as I contributed a tiny bit to it and then I think well actually I don't know where it ends, where did my bit end and where did restart speaking again. Oh wow that is good. Yeah. Where we kind of want to write something and then some then another one like write a few words and then the other person will just write a twiddly bit at the end and it's like yes of course. and then the other person will just write a twiddly bit at the end. And it's like, yes, of course.

It is really impressively seamless reading it. Like, if you were reading it and not knowing that there were two writers, you wouldn't be able to tell. Yeah, that's a little. Yeah. So, yeah, it wasn't really a struggle to find the voice either. I think probably because we are two women who love the witch books and can really identify with witches like Tiffany and I ask that it just felt quite natural finding the voice.

There's so much writing from Tiffany's perspective as well and obviously in the Tiffany book, they're from her perspective and then you've got the extra thoughts and the extra thoughts and the I guess you've been steeped in it for years. Yeah, and that was yeah, that was what I mean, it was nice to actually get to, we did write some bits in the voices of other witches, so it was nice to actually write a bit on borrowing by Granny Weather Works. We think, how would Granny write this? Because her writing has spelling is because I write it, her spelling is it. Yeah. I thought we had it that she would dictated it to Mystic, who would then really bother.

Yeah, we did actually change how the, how we wrote the annotations with Granny's voice with a bad spelling in that. We didn't want to get too bad spelling because then it might become indistinguishable from actual bad spelling. So I think we did a little bit of kind of, a little bit of accent on it, but by large, better spelling than a Grammy would probably have.

Yeah, I think more with kind of grammatical issues than spreading, didn't we, just so that people could actually understand what we were trying to say. Yeah. The handwriting actually for the annotations, is that, was that designed by the art director or anything? Is that anybody's handwriting that we know?

Or, no, that was Alex, that's, there were several iterations of the handwriting that was somewhere, no, that was Alex. So there were several iterations of the handwriting that was somewhere. No, it's just going to be too hard to actually work out what that say. So there was a bit of back and forth till we found the style that could actually be read. Because I think if you've got to take too long to try

and figure out the text, it just puts the reader off of it, doesn't that? So we have to have reasonably legible handwriting, which is also why we couldn't let Granny use her own. Yeah, all capscrawled, yeah. Amazing. Do we, before we go, is there anything other than Tiffany Akins, Glad to to be in which obviously that you'd like to plug or direct people towards? I have a look at. Well people are very welcome to check out my previous series of works, which is the Alfie Bloom series, which has been, yeah, the considered very practical, which has been very nice to hear. I do have a series, Knights and Bikes, which is based on the video game of this same name so it was amazing for me to get back and actually write a series based on a video game

and my later series is Rani reports about a British Marition girl and her granny who's over from Mauritius solving mysteries together as they search for the perfect news article. So that was great fun to write because my husband's family are Mauritian. So our daughter is a dual heritage and it was really nice to actually get to write a character that she went to see herself in. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. For me, Chris, the Storms, which was the Fighting Fantasy book, was like I wrote a couple of years ago, so I was the first woman to ever write a Fighting Fantasy book,

which surprisingly really, but that was a lot of fun to do, it was very, very hard work, and it seemed sort of kind of gone down fairly well, and also campaigns and companions, which I wrote with my friend Andy Ewington, which is a lot of jokes about pets playing D&D. If you follow my Twitter feed, I will be talking later this month about something I've been doing that you'll be able to listen to. Next month, but I can't say what that is yet, but it will be a lot of fun and probably appealing to, to, uh, disqual readers. Is the, uh,

the waterstones in Piccadilly on the 20s, is that so? Yeah, don't shriep like that. I don't know. Yes, please plug away. Yes, I was about things that, you know, were tickets sales, but yes, we are. In conversation with, you know, uh, Hugo,

winner Rob Wilkins, an artificial type of... Like for a moniker, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like, we have no idea what Rob might ask us. You know, the answer's to a lot of them. So yeah, that's going to be... That's going to be fun.

Oh, yeah. Be interested in what questions he asks, it's actually... I think that's done, it's actually been announced on asks is actually, I think that's done exactly been announced on their website that it's Rob that's interviewing people. That would be really nice to have Rob do that because he knows this inside out as well. So it'd be fun to see what he comes up with. Amazing.

Well, thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Drew Shaman Key Frapp. Please do the rate review and subscribe things if you've ever come find us because of the cursed algorithms. Until next week, you can join our discord. Link will be down below if I remember. Follow us on Instagram, the Treesham Mickey Frap, on Twitter and Blue Sky at Mickey Frap Board on Facebook at the Treesham Mickey Frap, join our subreddit, our slash TTSMYF, email us, your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and albatrosses, the Treesham Mickey Frapboard

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as well. Also dependent on climate of course. Yes, bollabons in unique is very seasonal. Right, sorry, I'm going to dance. once in a year because it's very seasonal. Right, sorry, I'm gonna dance.