The Reading Cafe

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! This superb season finale episode features Radiya Hafiza, author of The Silver Kingdom. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: Why the enemies-to-lovers plot continues to grip romantasy readers How Radiya approaches planning her stories, especiall...

APPROX AGE RATING: 12+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! This special episode is the first ever Reading Cafe LIVE Jr, which features award-winning fantasy writer, Ross MacKenzie, who speaks with Nora and Orla about his latest thrilling novel, The Uninvited. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: How (or...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome to a new chapter of The Reading Cafe. This is SpotLit, our brand-new strand where we speak to interesting people from arts and culture about their relationship with literature. In this SpotLit episode, Gemma and Victoria were joined by Aoife Anson-O'Connell of the thrilling 'Britainicana' band, Westside Cowboy. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: The soundtrack Aoife w...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! This special Reading Cafe LIVE episode features singer, song-writer, novelist and film-maker Stuart Murdoch of the legendary Scottish band, Belle and Sebastian. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: How Stuart approaches imagining things into rea...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! We’re making history with this episode featuring Alice Loxton, author of recent #3 Times Book Chart bestseller, Eleanor. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: The emotional connection Alice builds with figures from the past and how she is engagin...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! This thrilling episode features Benjamin Dean, author of YA survival horror novel, Bury Your Friends. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: How Ben maintains tension between characters to create atmosphere  The influences from music and the movie...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome to a brand new chapter of The Reading Cafe. This is SpotLit, our brand-new strand where we speak to figures from music, sport, entertainment and culture about their relationship with literature. In this SpotLit episode, Libby and Emma were joined by singer-songwriter and musician Alaska Reid, one half of the band Witch Post. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: The infl...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast named Best Children and Young Adults' Show by the Independent Podcast Awards, as well as Kids finalist in the 2025 British Podcast Awards and Books finalist in the 2025 Independent Podcast Awards! This magical new Halloween episode features Annaliese Avery, author of The Wycherleys, in conversation with Cara and Mol...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome to a brand new chapter of The Reading Cafe. This is SpotLit, our brand-new strand where we speak to figures from music, sport, entertainment and culture about their relationship with literature. In this very first SpotLit episode, we’re joined by actor, voice artist and writer Safiyya Ingar, in conversation with Niamh and Isla. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER: How S...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast named Best Children and Young Adults' Show by the Independent Podcast Awards and current FINALIST in the 2025 British Podcast Awards and 2025 Independent Podcast Awards! This brilliant episode features Emily Varga, writer of For She Is Wrath, in conversation with Rosie and Nicole.   IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER:...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome to Season 5 of The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast named Best Children and Young Adults' Show by the Independent Podcast Awards and current FINALIST in the 2025 British Podcast Awards! This special Reading Cafe LIVE episode was recorded with an enthusiastic audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival where we were joined by Waterstones Children's Bo...

APPROX AGE RATING: 9–12 Welcome back to The Reading Cafe, the award-winning podcast named Best Children and Young Adults' Show by the Independent Podcast Awards! This episode is a double delight! We’re joined by award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, along with his long-time collaborator, the brilliant illustrator Steven Lenton, for an inspiring and laughter-filled conversatio...

APPROX AGE RATING: 15+ (NATIONAL 5/HIGHER MODERN STUDIES/POLITICS) Welcome to The Reading Cafe - the podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! The Reading Cafe LIVE 2025 audience event featured an interview with Darren McGarvey, award-winning BBC documentarian and Orwell Prize-winning author of Poverty Safari and The Social Distance Between Us. During this...

APPROX AGE RATING: 9-11 Welcome back to The Reading Cafe! Pari Thomson is the author of the acclaimed eco-fantasy series Greenwild, which won the 2024 Waterstones Children's Book Prize for both the overall category and the Younger Readers prize. In addition to her own writing, Pari works as the Editorial Director at Bloomsbury Children's Books. Her Greenwild series has been praised for its imagina...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ WINNER - Best Children and Young Adults' Podcast 2024 (Independent Podcast Awards) Welcome back to the Reading Cafe! Kat McKenna is author of Look What You Made Me Do: A Love-Letter to the Fandom Era. As a massive long-term Swiftie, Kat evaluates the phenomenon of Taylor Swift's success and looks at the concept of fandom itself.  IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL HEAR ABOUT: - How Tay...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe! Kayvion Lewis is the author of Thieves' Gambit, winner of the 2024 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Readers. This thrilling and wildly imaginative crime novel is the first in a series which looks certain to become the next big YA hit. Excitingly, it is now on its way to the big screen, having been sold to Lionsgate who have brough...

APPROX AGE RATING: 15+ (NATIONAL 5 ENGLISH) Welcome to The Reading Cafe - the podcast from Holy Cross High School that aims to get people talking about reading! The inaugural Reading Cafe LIVE audience event featured an interview with Ann Marie Di Mambro, writer of the popular National 5 English set text, Tally’s Blood. During this excellent interview, Ann Marie was in conversation with two of our...

APPROX AGE RATING: 11+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe! Elle McNicoll is an award-winning author and screenwriter whose debut novel, A Kind of Spark, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blackwells Book of 2020 and the Blue Peter Book Award. The novel was recently adapted into a fantastic CBBC show. She also established The Adrien Prize - an award for novels which feature disabled chara...

APPROX AGE RATING 11+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe for a new season of awesome author interviews and riveting reading recommendations! Matt Oldfield is a hugely popular author of non-fiction (Ultimate Football Heroes, Unbelievable Football) and fiction (Johnny Ball: Football Genius) books about... you guessed it, football! His books fly off the library shelves and bring the lives of soccer sta...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe for the second part of our interview with Comic King, Mark Millar! In this episode, S6 Reading Leaders Ellie and Emma ask Mark about his opinions on the state of comic movie adaptations, his feelings about graphic novels finding their way into the classroom and lots more. It's a brilliant listen and we are very grateful to Mark for making tim...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ This is the first episode of our two-part interview with Comic King and New York Times best-selling writer, Mark Millar. Mark is the creator of the best-selling Marvel book of all time, Civil War, and his own Millarworld franchise was purchased by Netflix in 2017. Listen to Mark talking about his writing process, his own heroes and advice for young people who hope to get int...

APPROX AGE RATING: 11+ Today’s episode arrives just in time for World Book Day 2023! This is a discussion special in which our S1 pupils talk about Reading Resolutions, classic quotes, captivating covers & thought-provoking themes. Also, listen to find out who we have lined up for The Reading Cafe as our next interview guest… If you aren’t already following The Reading Cafe on Apple Podcasts/A...

APPROX AGE RATING: 9-11 We ended the year on a high with our first Reading Cafe transition event, which gave Primary Seven pupils from St Bride’s Primary (Bothwell) and St John the Baptist Primary (Uddingston) the opportunity to speak to Adrien Prize nominee Aisha Bushby (A Pocketful of Stars/A Flash of Fireflies) about her writing process. This event was also the first to involve three S2-4 pupil...

APPROX AGE RATING: 14+ 🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃 Fittingly for our Spooky Season Special, our interview guest is Master of Horror, Darren Shan! Darren is the creator of Zom-B, Archibald Lox and Cirque du Freak. His books are on sale in 40 countries in 32 languages and have sold 30 million copies worldwide. Darren talks with our S6 Reading Leaders and S1-4 Shanfans about his inspirations for writing,...

APPROX AGE RATING: 12+ Welcome back to The Reading Cafe! In this episode, we speak to Robin Stevens, author of the award-winning Murder Most Unladylike series. This is a fantastic interview and it was wonderful to be able to give some of her Holy Cross High School superfans the chance to talk with her. Soon after this interview, Robin was awarded Blackwell's Children's Book of the Year 2022 for he...