The Failing Writers Podcast

Winners winners, turkey dinners!

Don't forget you can still get 20% off SCRIVENER using the code 'failing' until the new year - so do that first before you get side-tracked with all the less-important Christmas stuff.

OK. Done that? Great. Now listen to this lovely episode featuring the wonderful Amy Daughters talking about how hand written letters can help bring people together.

Time to finish our letter to Bridget Phillipson, and once again thank the incredible teachers we spoke to, and the pupils for their fabulous creative writing.

And hey, thank yourself too! Whether you like it or not, you're now part of our powerful army of activists, who are going to help bring about a U-turn in reading and writing!

Let's start today - let's put away the smartphones - let's read more - let's volunteer as a paired-reader at a school. Let's big-up teachers - let's write something and share it with the world - let's write letters to the government until they change the way English is taught, and the way the arts are viewed in schools.

Thanks for listening, and if you want to know more about the stuff we've been discussing, or have any other suggestions about how we might give English in schools a boost - drop us a line!

[email protected]

"Thank goodness for the Failing Writers."

A phrase you've no doubt overheard people say quite a lot over the years. At bus stops. Maybe in libraries? At the off licence?

No? Not even the off license?

Oh.

Anyway - not to worry - this week you're ALMOST CERTAIN to hear it, as Jon and Tom slip their pants on over their tights and become SAVIOURS OF THE SUBJECT OF ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS.

Yes, we're making it our mission to breathe new life into our favourite school subject and bring back the joy of reading and writing for the young folk of Britain!

How?

By writing a sternly worded letter of course! To Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education.

But first, we need to talk to some people who actually know what they're talking about. You know, to find out what the heck's going on with young people and reading and writing!

First up: Inspirational English Guru: (Yes. We're calling her a guru!) Leah Crawford.

Ooh... and don't you dare forget to enter our Festive Flash Fiction Competition in Association with Scrivener:

Get more details here:

If Tom & Jon wrote poems

‘spose it will be assumed

They won’t be as good as Henry’s

Normal service will be resumed.

In this episode, we meet up with Henry Normal: poet, writer of famous sit-coms, TV producer and poetry festival founder, and have a blummin’ lovely natter.

(After we did that - we watched him perform all his lovely poems, so effortlessly. So fluidly. So naturally.

And thus, inspired by his performance, we wondered how hard it would be to knock off a quick poem and perform it aloud.

“Bloobee blah blah bleeblee

 Bloobloo bloobloo la!…”

Sort of like that.

Dead easy.

So we did.

The results were... profoundly... um...

...well... decide for yourself.)

Henry Normal’s insta: