Reading with a chance of tacos

Find your niche, know who you are as a creator, and learn to weave it all together to become a formidable artist. Today's guest is an author, illustrator, designer, and a primary school art teacher. His first book 'All Monkeys Love Bananas' was a best-seller, and his picture book, 'As Happy as a Hog Out of Mud' has just picked up Picture Book of the Year at the 2022 Western Australia Young Readers...

The Dangerous Business of Being Trilby Moffat is the new book from Author Kate Temple . She's popped in today to share her writing journey with us, along with her tips and tricks on writing amazing books for kids.   

"Australia needs a financial revolution, and it needs to start with our kids!" Scott Pape (OAM) Today's guest wrote Australia's number 1 bestselling book, The Barefoot investor – the only money guide you'll ever need. It's believed to be in 1 in every 20 households across the country. In 2020, he received the Order of Australia Medal for services to the community and financial education. Today, he...

Creator of Macca the Alpacca and Worst Week Ever series of books, Matt Cosgrove and Eva Amores pop in to talk all about the Worst Week Ever series that's taking the world by storm. They share their processes, tips and all the fun of co-creating such a fun series of books. Plus, tune in to win the first 3 books in the series. 

How to write great characters. Today's guest is a highly acclaimed author of over thirty books for children, across all styles and ages. Her work is published internationally to many commendations and awards. She has also worked as a publisher at Penguin Books in a career that has just been incredible. Today, she's popped in to share her latest book. A real thriller, set in forest late at night. A...

A new series of memorable, funny and diverse stories on First Nations Lands. Stories to help kids accept each other and themselves. Author and Editor Randa Abdel-Fattah drops in to share her new series of books for young readers called Our Stories. It's a series of books from various authors and illustrators that share real stories of diversity. We discuss what that means and how we can better und...

Today's guest was shortlisted as a Rising Star of Australian Publishing at the Australian Book Industry Awards. She's been on several conference panels and her knowledge of the industry and creating books for children is amazing. But today we're discussing her very own, brand new book, The Naked Sheep. To tell us all about her new book, including her process for keeping her readers engaged, please...

The Children's Book Council of Australia voted her book the number one in Early Childhood for 2022. The book is titled Jetty Jumping and was inspired by today's guests love of bayside communities. She's popped in today to share her author journey, tips on writing, and her award-winning picture book. Please welcome Andrea Rowe.

Today, we look at a day in the life of an author. Get some writing tips, look at the writing process and share some great ideas. You might know today's guest as the author of such books as Derek Dool series, Alien Zoo, Kick it to Nick, Co-author of Little Legends and the picture book author of Stop the Dad Jokes and The Unfunny Bunny. Or you might know him as a TV Producer who has worked on such s...

For every child practicing their new instrument and the parents and teachers helping them along the way, this picture book celebrates the joy of unexpected friendship through music. Young readers will love the appealing characters and carefully drawn settings. Two cultures, two instruments, one piece of music; the inclusion of a playable tune is a bonus! Today's guest grew up in Canada before movi...

Today's guest is a Melbourne based artist and now author, whose story demonstrates to us all that it's never too late to nurture your life-long passion. The courage to get out of her comfort zone and give something a go, together with a love of animals and the natural world has inspired some amazing picture books. And, to share her story with us, along with her latest picture book titled Grub, ple...

Ingrid Laguna shares her writing journey as we discuss what writing is. What it means to us. What we can acheive through writing.  And how to go about it. Today's guest is a dynamic and engaging author and educator. She worked as the Education Advisor for the Melbourne Writers Festival Schools' Program. She taught at an intensive English Language school for migrant and refugee-background schools t...

On today's show, we discuss self publishing a picture book and using Kickstarter to get it out into the world. Today's guest has always loved picture books. As a school teacher, her classroom overflowed with children's books. Soon, she began writing her own stories for various educational publishers. And, now has over 90 educational books published in the UK and in Australia. From here she decided...

Author, Lian Tanner talks about how to use voice to talk to the reader and to build your characters.  Lian also shares her author journey and Liv reviews the awesome middle grade novel, The Way of Dog

Today's guest is an indie author with a real go-getter attitude. Her debut chapter book is Looking for Lily, about a group of awesome headbanging little rockers called Sprites. To tell us all about them, and all about her amazing journey in the industry and what she's learned self publishing her book - the tips, tricks, costs and everything in between, please give it up for the energetic, lively a...

No matter where we come from, how old we are, and what stage of life we are in, today's guest believes we all connect through story. In fact, she has a wonderful example of how picture books create the most amazing emotional response for alderly people with memory loss.  All that and more with Author Ellie Royce. Plus, Hayley in the Library pops in to share what the kids are all reading at school,...

Deb's journey is as much an interview on how to turn a negative into a positive as I've heard. From the idea for her amazing book, to the writing process, and even her thoughts on rejection are inspiring. Today's guest lives in Melbourne, in a yellow house, where she writes lots of different things, including stories for kids. She loves etymology (the archaeology of words), entomology (the study o...

Author, Zanni Louise pops in to share her author journey, along with her latest picture book Pigasus, about a young pig who wants to fly.  Zanni gives some awesome author advice. Plus, with book week upon us, we've got author, Amelia McInerney sharing how she goes about the week and her tips for a successful school visit. All that and more on this week's Taco's Podcast!

Today's guest is drawn to storytelling - the history of stories, the magic and the way stories are told, and taking moments in history and sharing it with others. She is the author of Pharlap the wonder horse , Gold and A Shorebird Flying adventure . To tell us about the magic of storytelling, in it's various forms, please welcome the amazing, Jackie Kerin.

Words have power. Use them correctly, and your story can change someone's life.  Today's guest is a screenwriter and playwright who loves creating shows for young audiences. She adapted three of David Walliams' books for the stage, as well as Oliver Jeffers'  The Incredible Book Eating Boy , all of which premiered at the Sydney Opera House and toured across Australia. She began her career in TV, w...

Do you want to write great kids books? Today's guest is an author with more than twenty years' experience in writing award winning books and television. And even more impressive than that, she is someone who writes with such enthusiasm for her story topics, her characters, and for the audience she writes for, which I think is just the best thing of all. She's popped in today for a taco, to tell us...

Today's guest is an award-winning author and illustrator.  Her current series is the popular Detective's Guide Series. She's popped in to share her journey with us, along with some awesome advice on how she writes and researches language, accents, slang, dialogue and how she captures the voice and characters from far back as the 1920's. Please welcome, the wonderful Nicki Greenberg. Green's Dictio...

Today's guests offer up some awesome tips on writing and illustrating books for kids. As well as giving insight into the publishing world and how they collaborate as author and illustrator on their new middle grade series, Cross Bones.  Cross Bones is about 5 rascally pirate dogs on an adventure to unbury some treasure on the high seas. It's full of adventure, fun and lot's of laughs for kids of a...

How can authors grow their communities through social media? Our special guest is Scott Stuart . Scott's empowering messages have been seen  over 100 million times on Social Media. Scott is also a best-selling children's book author who is committed to creating content that empowers young kids. His books have appeared on  numerous best-seller lists  across the globe, been  adapted for the stage an...