Adventures With Words: My Monday Night Saviour!

Last autumn I made a discovery that would change my Monday nights, a night normally tiring and miserable it being the beginning of the week and all, forever. That discovery was the fantastic podcast-Adventures with Words. I first discovered them because we were both at a bloggers event at Simon and Schuster publishers back in October and I happened upon their podcast covering the event when I was doing my own write-up of the night.

Rob and Kate cover so many aspects of the written word in all it's forms on their podcast that it truly is a different listen every week. They are a great outlet for information about future releases. They repo vide an excellent commentary on what they are currently reading and cover all of the long and short lists for any f the major fiction prizes. I really enjoy some of their discussion topics about short stories and about film adaptations, and have been known to talk out loud to their podcast whilst listening to something I really agree/disagree with, (sometimes in the bath!)

They did an outside recording covering an event in their hometown for World Book Night which was a bumper podcast but which I found really enjoyable, and now they are gearing up for their next big 'adventure' a live event-The Great British Book Off. Hosted by Rob, an invited panel of big names and familiar faces from Colchester’s arts, culture and political scenes will be advocating their favourite British book, explaining why they think it’s a Great British classic, and reading their favourite. The winning panellist will be awarded the inauragural Great British Book-Off certificate. It sounds super exciting, and although I can't go unfortunately, I will leave details at the bottom of the page for anyone who might be interested. I emailed Kate and Rob because I wanted to find out some more details about how this fabulous podcast started, they also sent me a lovely picture of themselves to you could see the faces behind the voices, here's what they had to say... 

Firstly, I'd really like to know how you started the podcast, why you chose a podcast over just a written blog, or indeed, a vlog?

Rob started Adventures With Words as a cooperative blog with a couple of friends but it had all gone a bit quiet before we restarted it.  However, he had always wanted to try a podcast, as he's been a big fan of things like DiggNation, where people started a podcast based on a news-sharing website, then even a live broadcast.  I had a radio show on the student radio station, Purple FM, while I was at university, so I knew a little bit about mice, desks, faders and so on, so we thought we'd give it a try.  Fifty five episodes later, here we are!  I'm not sure whether we'd want to do a blog, as these tend to be a bit shorter and I think we both feel we can do the discussion justice in writing or audio.

How are you feeling leading up to the live event?

We're both excited but obviously a bit nervous too.  Earlier in the year, we recorded The Big Bookbang, Colchester's World Book Night event and exchange, but this is the first time we've actually organised and hosted the event ourselves.  Rob will be hosting solo, because I'm away with work, so he's got a bit more responsibility on the day, but I've been doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes emailing and organising.  It looks like it's all coming together nicely now, so fingers crossed.

What are you hoping the live event will achieve and would you like to do more in the future?

Rob and I both really enjoy festivals and going to events like this, so we'd like to put something on that others will enjoy, plus it's great being involved with our local creative community.  We'd obviously love to get some more readers for the blog and listeners for the podcast, but we'd also like to make more face-to-face contact with people who already listen.  Eventually, we'd love to take the event to larger local, maybe even national, festivals.
What kinds of books do you both Like to read and review?

We've just updated our review policy, and just recorded a podcast about comfort reading and reading outside our comfort zones, so we've both been thinking a lot about this recently.  Rob really enjoys thrillers and espionage, as well as World War adventures.  I really like detective and police procedurals, but my first loves are science fiction and fantasy as well as young adult fiction.  That said, we both do enjoy literary fiction as well.  We're reading HHhH by Laurent Binet for our Book of the Month.

What's next for Adventures With Words?

Rob and I are off to Latitude Festival, where we're hoping to take in plenty of the discussions in the Literary Arena but also plenty of music, drama and comedy too.  We're planning to report back from the festival, keep podcasting and blogging, and who knows, maybe we'll be on the bill of a festival next summer…  We're looking at using YouTube more - we've got a channel so we'd like to start sharing clips and videos - and we may even launch our own Adventures With Words app.

You can visit adventures with words on their web page where you will find links to each weeks podcast as well as additional articles and blog posts, just click here.

You can subscribe to the podcast through I tunes, OR you can listen to them on British Public Radio.

If you are interested in going to the Great British Book Off, it's completely free and is on this Saturday (13th July) 12pm-1:30pm at the Lightbulb festival, 15 Queen Street, Colchester, Essex.

You can follow adventures with words on Twitter @wordadventures , or Rob @robchilver , or Kate @Magic_Kitten . And you can also like their page on Facebook to keep informed of everything that's going on with them.

Thanks to Rob and Kate for answering my questions and also for keeping me entertained on a Monday night!