I’ve spoken to a lot of reluctant readers at schools across the world over the years, at festivals, book days, comic conventions and countless other places, where I’ve had the opportunity to convince children to ‘change the channel’ and give books another chance. But last week I found myself out of my ‘comfort zone’, in Jane Austen’s one time kitchen in

So. 2012 is finally ending, and the newborn 2013 is already starting to make it’s way around the world as I write this, my summary of the year. A year where I began at my lowest ebb and slowly clawed my way back up. Well, that might be a little melodramatic - after all, I wasn’t ending the year at the

When I was ten years old, I sent Anthony Ainley a letter. Bear with me on this one, there’s a reason I start with this. Ainley was, at the time ‘The Master’ on Doctor Who, and I thought he was brilliant. And, on a day of writing off to various actors for autographs (these were the innocent eighties, where autograph