The Book Café - 20/09/2010

Master storyteller Philip Pullman on the secrets of spinning a good yarn - and he reveals how he discovered he's just not a writer who can do comedy. Looking ahead to his event at next week's Wigtown Book Festival, novelist Robert Twigger reveals some of the thirteen errors he made when writing his first novel- obviously we're hoping to coax him into telling us how to avoid them! Scotland is well-represented on the shortlist for this year's School Librarian of the Year prize. We'll find out what makes a good school librarian and ask how important a place the library is for pupils, given the pressures of lessons and the distractions of after school activities. And Australian writer Alex Miller is as highly regarded in his home country as Peter Carey, Kate Grenville and Richard Flanagan - so why are readers in this country yet to discover him?