 Good afternoon. Thank you so much for coming to the British Library this afternoon. Greetings to everybody who's watching online in libraries around the country and around the world. We've got many of you here today, so thank you so much all for being here. for today's event celebrating the publication of Tiffany Akin's Guide to Being a Witch. Obviously, you've just seen our lovely trailer for our fantasy exhibition, which has just opened over in the main building, and I do hope you'll get a chance to see it sometime over the next five or so months. gyda'n cael eu cyflawn. Fy hoed. Mae'n gywir o'r cyflawn Wah ao Gweinwyr yma. Slywch yn ein h Bourd,鈴au, cyddwmiadau... All that things are building up to really diverse and old a new version of what we know as fantasy fiction and fantasy literature so I do get a chance to see it. Odo yn y ddyfod ar gyfer y ffordd. Ar hyn y first day of the exhibition. The first event accompanying the exhibition and the first day you'll ever get a chance un o'r lle hwn yw gan Gafiel a Rhiannor Pfeicio hynny, ac ar y cwliniaidd, myni'r lleion yn gweithio yn ymddiad, oherwydd y cyfnod ar y gw Official Pfeicio wir. Felly, mae'n falch hwn ymddiad, rhai, mae'n fyddynt gennych sydd wedi eu cyfnod ar gael y brosesoedd byll, mae yma hwn, weilch ystod o bwysig, oes o'r rhaid pan wrth eu cyfnod hefyd, ac rhaid eu lle hwn yn iawn, Tarydd yn ysgol Llywodraeth ac yn Ynw'r Gwymol yn y 40a anfertych o'r teulu am y gwirionedd yma. Rwy'n fawr, mae'r gweithio'r gwybodaeth yng Nghymru. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio yn y gweithio gael pobl yn ymddir i'w chyfnod i'r ysgrifennu, those of you who ask online will also be able to ask questions. There's a little form below the video window. You can put a question in that and it will be relayed through to us and we will be able to put one or two of those to the panel later on. If you want to buy a book, first chance today, obviously, you could get one outside afterwards. Or if you're online, you can go to the books tab at the top of the page and that will take you to a link in the Rich Library Bookshop and you'll be able to order a copy there. So that's all I really need to say other than to say that our host for today is the fantastic journalist, columnist, Pratchett fan, obviously, Kat Brown. She's also a writer with two books coming out next year which are called... I knew I was going to forget this. No-one talks about this stuff, you know, that's my end. Oh, my God. It's really good. And it's not a trend, it's not just a trend. It's not a bloody trend. Not a bloody trend, bloody fear. Right. Okay, that's it. So, Kat, Rhianna, and Gabrielle, please enjoy the event. This is lovely for a Friday afternoon. Welcome families, freelancers, people just banking off work. That's great. I knew here. I took... I got this courier to my house this morning and subsequently decided to drastically up the quality of my wardrobe because this is a really, really gorgeous addition. Rob Wilkins was in the green room and he just took it and went... Ah! Apparently, this is the sort of thing that we care about with hardbacks now and I will have to start doing this more. We are here to celebrate, well, actually, the pre-launch, really, of Tiffany Aikings' guide to Being a Witch, which is out on November 9th from Penguin, but obviously, I think some of you may have already bought your copies from out there, which is wonderful. But also, crucially, we're here to talk to the co-authors, Rhianna Pratchit and Gabrielle Kent, which is just wildly exciting. Rhianna, you have recently stepped into the world of voice-overs for these and I was just wondering if you might like to do us the honour of reading Tiffany's introduction to the book to get us off. Would you like some water? Sorry, I didn't expect this so far, so I haven't prepared it. I do think I need a bit of water. Let me just find it. OK. Show of hands who has actually bought the book already. I mean, phenomenal work. Well done. I was like, maybe afterwards, but no. There is a suite of signing pens that these ladies have got, so it'll be fab. We're also just in the background going to have a really lovely slideshow of some of Paul Kidby's illustrations of the book, which is stunning. But yeah, let's kick off with this introduction, which I've just totally put her on the spot for, but that's fine. She's a pro. So here you are holding my book. Perhaps you're already an apprentice which looking for extra guidance on the future. Maybe you've been earmarked by a witchfinder as someone with potential and you're wondering just what that might mean. Or possibly you're simply curious about what might be in these pages and they're looking forward to correcting me, pretending you haven't read it or treating me with a lethal amount of politeness next time our paths cross. Whether you've bought, begged, borrowed or stolen this book, you are welcome here. This book was written over a number of years. I've lost some dear friends along the way. Their teachings live on in these pages as do their notes, which I've retained for posterity. They live on in me and now I hope they will live on in you too. For me, finding my personal path to witchhood was hazy at best, but it also involved a book, the Goodie Childly's book of fairy tales. Not exactly a guide to being a witch, so much as a guide to not being one. The teller of these tales clearly imagined that the Goodie Childly would empathise with the noble princes, beautiful princesses, brave woodcutters and those who abused the letter E. Not me. Princes were dull and mostly made of chin. And besides, they mainly seem to do daft things. Oh, sorry, I mean jumped ahead there. I didn't have the poise, breeding or the good hair to be a princess. Besides, they mainly seem to do daft things with spindles or apples or sat around waiting to be rescued. Their lives were both dangerous and boring. Woodcutters appeared a little more competent, but aside from an occasional break to kill a talking wolf, I wasn't sure I wanted to chop wood all day. And since I've never been good with an axe, we were approaching dangerous and boring territory again. Which is now they've seemed much more fun. Okay, there's a certain amount being shoved in ovens by greedy children or talking to mirrors, so danger was a given, but witches were dangerous and exciting. They got broomsticks, wands and magic spells. And as I imagine back then, they went to learn witchcraft at a special school, probably taking them in the back of a unicorn or something equally magic like that. But witchcraft isn't about magic or showy spells, at least not most of the time. It's largely about hard work in realising that true magic, true power, is not about understanding spells but understanding people. Hearing their spill words, the things they almost say but don't or can't. Being a witch is about facing your fears and understanding that even if something isn't your fault, it's your responsibility. It's about being a voice for the voiceless and standing between the light and the darkness. And more often than not, it's about having a piece of string on you. If you're still with me, then maybe this is the life for you. And I'm glad because the world needs witches and witchcraft in whatever form they take. As you tread the path you've chosen, you will learn the lessons of those who gift you with their wisdom and knowledge. They will become part of you because you are not just a witch. You are all witches that have come before you and will come after you. This isn't really my book, it's our book. As for the school, it's not a place, it's all places. Just look around you, you're already there. Oh, lovely. It's all bit teary. Looking at this absolutely gorgeous silhouette on the cover, there's also a lovely line on the back of the book which is from Tiffany saying, they say you don't find witchcraft, it finds you. And before we actually talk about the meat of the book itself, I was wondering if you could just tell me a little bit about your experiences or thoughts around magic and witchcraft sort of growing up and how that's been in your lives. You talk from it. Or water, Rhianna. My mother's Irish and she grew up on a farm in Galway. And it just feels like there's always been magic in my life of my grandmother's stories of... She used to talk a lot about the little people, actually. She used to save... Every kiss I gave, she saved in a tin on the dresser and she said it was to trade with the little people. And I was thinking, if she actually meant beagles, then they'd probably be more interested in her putching that she meant. But she had just the most amazing stories. Just magic was an everyday part of life with my grandmother. She just saw magic in absolutely everything. And I always felt that growing up and I think your dad actually was... What did he say to you about some magic and... I think it's used to... Why, you also keep your mind open to my daughter, which I think we incorporated a little bit in the book as well. But, yeah, grannies, I think, were very important to both of us. We realised that we both actually had Shepardeth grandmother. My maternal grandmother, who was known as Mum's Mum, had a flock of Jacob's sheep that she had for wool. And my uncle and my grandfather would shear them and treat the wool. And then dad would actually spin the wool and then my gran would knit it into the jumpers that are mentioned in the book, which are so stiff that they can stand up by themselves and usually have some kind of barnyard animal knitted into the front of them. But, yeah, the first book that I really registered dad writing, because I kind of... When you're a kid, you don't pay that much attention to what your parents do. It's just what your parents do. And then he was serialised on Woman's Hour. I was like, oh, my God, women's hour. My mum listened to women's hour. And that was just special, like, oh, my God, he's on Woman's Hour. And he must be doing something cool. I think I'll have a listen. And then I, like, taped it off the radio. And I think I'd heard my dad say that it was... Esquiz was certainly the character that he openly said was based on me. There's a lot of me and all his female... His younger female characters. But Esquiz was the one he said he based on me when I was eight. And I think that intrigued me as well. And I just listened to it over and over again. And I think that's one of the reasons why the witches became my favourite stories and strand of disc world writing. But, yeah, my grandmother was very important to me, my paternal grandmother. She was more kind of into Greek myths and legends. And she was, like, very big on storytelling and things like that. And something that his dad's granny was as well. So, yeah, witchy grandmother's are definitely big in my family. Well, with that in mind, even though lots of you, well done, seem to have bought the book already, particularly for our online viewers, it's a little bit like sort of talking about air or something. So would you be able to just sort of take us through a little bit about what the book is, what it's about, how it's sort of laid out, all that sort of thing? It does, I should point out to everybody, have that kind of rich, unctuous writing that's naniog so appreciated on invitation. And I've spent most of today just poring at this book. Edges! Edges! And the shiny edges as well. Just to, yes, fend off people by reflecting this in mirrors. But, yeah, if you wouldn't mind just telling us a bit about basically, I suppose, what it is before we get into how it's all come together. Yeah, well, you're looking at it. So, yeah, when we, I mean, it was decided that the needed to be to celebrate, obviously, the 20th anniversary of the Tiffany book. So Rhiann I got our heads together and thought, well, what would a witch need to know in the disc world? What are the important lessons to learn? So we made a big long list of what we thought were all just the key aspects of witchcraft on the disc. And then we threw that out to each other, the list to pick and choose which chapters we wanted to do from that. So I thought we might end up arguing a bit over some of these chapters, but weirdly, we both got exactly the chapters we wanted. There were no arguments at all. And we dealt with the areas that we were particularly passionate about in the book. But, yeah, it was that kind of drawing up of a list of everything that we thought was key to being a witch on the disc. Everything a witch should know, but annotated, inevitably, with interference from all of the other witches as well. Where did that sort of idea come from and how did you manage to think about how you wanted to sort of bring all the other witches in? Cos, obviously, in the wider series, that can be quite interfering, but here it just sort of works. Well, I mean, the witches are very interfering. Witches are interfering, that's all part of being a witch. And we wanted to get the older witches' voices in there. We thought we could have a lot of fun with it. And I think we sort of kind of looked towards the Jedi guide. It does a synness to you. Yeah, they all have this. And we just thought it would be fun. Good to get jokes in and anecdotes. And sort of it really took on a life of its own. So it's the predominant witches that common are a naniog and granny weatherwax. And we sort of went back and forth thinking, okay, when exactly has she written this? So the idea was she wrote it in bits during her time and then sort of gathered it all together and then published it kind of later. So we wanted to make sure granny weatherwax was in there and Miss Tick, Miss Lettys earwig is in there as well. And I think we've got a little bit, Robb anybody is in there. There's a little bit, a tiny bit toad. Esk even gets to write a bit. Esk has written a bit, Geoffrey's written a bit. So yeah, it was just a lot of fun. We wanted to kind of make it like witches' plural thing rather than just witch. Yeah, and it was great fun to do. Whenever there was anything that could be taken a different way, I would come like, oh, there's no way a naniog would let that go. It's a little comment in the match. There is no dooblontondra left unturned. Sometimes it's scribbled out a little bit. Exactly. And I did actually sort of really take it up to my face to see if I could see through the scribbles and I can't sadly, very upsetting. So this is obviously a brand new endeavour for you both, but I understand that you two have known each other for what, 20 years? 20 years? 20 years anniversary. It is, I don't know. Oh, that is lovely. So how did this writing partnership come about, but also how did you two come across each other in the first place? You remember better than I do. I do. Much better with date. So we both worked in video games and working in video games, particularly in the 90s, you just didn't meet any of the women working in games. It was very rare. And then someone organised a man, actually, organised the very first women in games conference in 2004. And we went along and it was suddenly there was a room full of women doing the same jobs as us and it was just such a breath of fresh air. We could actually talk about stuff. And so I saw re-chatting, I think I interrupted you were talking to me, I thought, re-patch it. And I got that look as though to say, oh, yeah, are you going to mention Dad next? And I said, no, I love the work you've done for PC's on. And she said, oh, and you look like Evil Willow from Buffy with the Mampire Slayer. And I was like, I love Buffy, who doesn't. So, and then we kind of linked arms and skipped up into the sunset. I didn't know each other. Was that something that came up? Or they knew each other somehow, did you say? Oh, well, um... Are you thinking back to the first time that I met Terry Pratchett? He didn't come to my dad. Sounds slightly threatening, Gabrielle, to be honest. Yeah, it's an interesting story. So I went to the signing of Last Continent in the late 90s up in Newcastle. Q's right down the street. Dad had brought a lot of books with him. So he finally got to the front of the queue and my dad unloaded his Pratchett collection and Terry sort of, yeah, he did sign them all for him and then my dad went to pack them all up. And then I got my book signed and Terry was saying... I was a little bit gothy at the time and he was saying, oh, are you a goth? And I said, oh, I mumbled something about not wanting to put labels on my... And he said, oh, no, you don't have enough of the panther eye. That's a very goth thing to say, isn't it? Yes, I know. He said, I suppose you've got some... He was about to sign the book and he said, I suppose you've got some kind of fantastic name, or a minted diamond or something. I said, Carol. I was called Carol at the time. And he just looked at me and said, what wanker called you Carol? And I kind of just sighed eye to my dad and he was packing up all over his books. But actually, I was thinking... That was just as I was graduating from university and I had been thinking about changing my name for some time. I mean, that absolutely decided it for me. You could have been a peddita. I could have been a peddita. That was a suggestion we both made at the same time and I hadn't actually read Masquerade at that point so I didn't realise that was a character he'd written. And that made me think, oh, was he commenting on the fact that it was this dressed-as-perditor but, yeah, dressed-as-perditor but maybe an agnes knit really inside. I would definitely cast your writing partnership into a different light, which one's agnes and which one's perditor. So when did you decide to actually write it together and sort of why? Was it just that there was the sheer amount of almost writing and encyclopedia to do and wanting to actually split it up? I think part of it... I'd been friends with Gary for so long. She was doing some work with me as a writer's assistant and doing bits and pieces for Narrativea and I just felt it would be really fun to do, I think. It's always fun when you take your best friend along and it felt like narratively we could link arms and I knew how much the witch is meant to Gabrielle and they meant the same thing to me and we talked a lot about them and it just seemed like, yeah, this is... Gabrielle's a brilliant children's writer in her own right and I'd been reading her books for a while and it just seemed like this is it, this is the one. And it was surprisingly easy. It was, yeah. She came away saying, oh, you're really easy to work with. I said, yeah. It was wonderful. Yeah, it's amazing. I spent 20 years in the Gated Injury having come out as a terrible torch and angst it. Well, I have a bit, but... Yeah, it was just... It was very smooth and it was about kind of making each other laugh and crying and I think that's the secret to all partnerships, especially if there's comedy involved. You're making each other laugh. How did you work together? Because you said that when it came to topics in the book which cover everything from spirits to cottages and between and also all favourite characters as well. You said it was quite an easy split. So which sort of topics did each of you immediately go for and how did you go about the process of actually doing the work? I'm going to need to remember what the chapters are. I tended towards what I think I saw as more frivolous topics like a tyre and companions and stuff. And Gabrielle felt more serious but I managed to find the serious bits within the kind of lighter chapters and Gabrielle found the lighter bits within the seriousness. Yeah, we did have a lot of fun so I've got a new kind of lightened up some of mine and we've kind of brought pathos on that. So each of us sort of was the main writer on one chapter and then the other would edit and then I think the ending was both of our work. And yeah, I don't know, it just kind of worked. I think I did one of the earlier chapters which was a tyre which was used as a kind of proof of concept one as well. I do remember at one point there was quite a serious chapter I'd done near the end and you were looking to add some naniog comments because I was really worried about her adding a naniog comment to quite a serious bit. She said, don't worry, I'm not going to pathos your pathos. Because we were working together. We could see each other. We were working together on Zoom so we could see each other on screen all the time as we were working and we were working in live documents so we could see each other writing and birthing jokes so we were able to kind of chat and watch each other. I could watch her highlighting every time I used Anne to start a centre. I don't realise you were watching. I was just passively aggressively highlighting it so I could see what I'd done. I didn't realise you were watching at the time. Talk about a tyre being frivolous but Paul Kidby's done these amazing illustrations again but all through the book, it's just absolutely gorgeous. He obviously took them extremely seriously. There are pages and pages that are going to happen. It's more frivolous than say life and death of gods and monsters but they were really fun to do because they're so linked heavily to the witches and who the witches are. Paul's illustrations were just so utterly marvellous and we ended up writing extra bits into the book because Paul wanted to draw them so he wanted to do some of the creatures from Fairyland so you'll see the drone coming up behind us and the Grimhounds as well so we sort of worked them in so Paul got a chance to draw them and I think as he's off on the way with Paul Rob had to basically chisel the pen out of his hand to get him to stop drawing things because we have to publish a book but yeah, it was wonderful to see it come to life. And we've been illustrated by Paul. Did you see the authors' photos? The authors' photos are Paul Kidby illustrations. We've been illustrated by Paul Kidby which was very exciting by that. Perhaps you're stunning illustrations of Terry, Rhianna and Gabrielle and then Paul has drawn himself essentially as a potato. I suppose if you've done all the work, why bother in yourself? I think Rob any body drew that for him actually. There are some lovely interactions in the comments and the margins between Rob and Paul especially as regards to Paul drawing the neck and the feels a little too accurately and worries that the guards are going to come and find them. Well, we've just actually seen Mrs Arwej slash Earwig go past so I know that you've sort of taken turns in writing from the perspective of a lot of the characters but Rhianna, I know you've got a particular penchant slash passion for ghastly Mrs Earwig and I wondered if you might read... You have to find it. Mrs Lettys Earwig, Arwej, was written by Gabby but I actually voiced her for the audible version of it. So can you give me a live version of Mrs Earwig? Dear Mr Goatburger, as the author of many best-selling books on which graphs such as First Flights and which graphed the Haya Mijic, My Fairy Fiends and to read a golden broomstick, imagine my praise when I was not consulted on your most recent acquisition, Guide to Being a Witch by young Tiffany Aiking. I have managed to avail myself of a number of pages from this guide and soon discovered an army of emissions and inaccuracies. Please find and close my corrections for inclusion. It also includes my card should you wish to further avail yourself of my extensive knowledge of magic, witchcraft and wizardry regards Mrs Lettys Earwig. I'm just forever impressed that you can make such a ghastly character 100 times more ghastly. So good. Paul, when you say that Paul is illustrated like pretty much everybody, there is a particularly gorgeous picture of Noir, the goddess of, well not draws, but basically everything that's sort of been lost. But depicted as Botticelli's Venus surrounded by floating forks, which just feels like he went off on one and then we lost him for a couple of weeks. Do you have any favourite illustrations in the book? I know there's tons. There's a lot of ones that we really love. There's a really great coven picture. This is a really good one of Rob with the dragons coming out of the page. That is also good. There's a really wonderful S picture. With the dungeon dimension creatures behind her. That's really great. The coven I'd say is one of my favourite because of the personalities and the witches really come out in each individual image within it. But yeah, it's just like, oh that's lovely, oh that's amazing, and every page is just gorgeous. We've got a little explanation as well for why, oh my goodness, I've forgotten it. Anna Gramer. Anna Gramer. She who shall not be named. Why she's not in the coven picture. It was none of the other witches. I said they'd let her know, but none of them let her know about the coven picture. That's not going to comment anymore. Thinking about names though, when I was reading it there were some names where I was like, is my memory just going even more or have I not heard this before? But no, you said that there were a couple that you were able to name yourselves. Who were they? Miss Level was never given a first name, so she's constant level now. And the first calder from we from men is called Maeve. Those are the ones that we named. I don't know if there's a point of name or anything else. It feels like those are the only two. We had to run it, we ran them by Rob just in case. There's some, I feel like Constance Level didn't get the laugh that it actually deserved. Where did Maeve come from or was that just like? Just one of good Scottish names, because a few have been taken up with previous Calder. So, yeah, it just seemed a nice one. It does fit very nicely. But Constance Level does, she's the one that looks a bit like Joan Hickson. It really works with her image. Yeah, it's lovely seeing the illustrations matching almost what you've got in your head even though you didn't know everybody else. You also mentioned that there is one Easter egg for everybody to look out for that you were particularly proud of. Yeah, there's a Hitchhiker's Guide joke in there, which is my most favourite part of Maeve Maeve amazing the world ever. And I was like so excited. I was like, Gary, you've got to do that. Spot the part, spot the part. See if you can spot it. I didn't spot it. I wrote about hitchhikers and it was only when Rhianna went, it's that, I was like, oh, that is good! So I really hope that you'll be more observant than I actually am. This is a guide to being a witch, one of the reasons that I think so many of us have just absolutely adored the Tiffany A. King books in particular is that really peculiar thing that young adults and children's fiction has is of being able to talk about life, how to be a person, and how to deal with really difficult things in the purest way possible. I've basically got an enormous list here of just things that I really enjoyed in terms of life advice and everything, but I was just wondering if there were any moments that you would both sort of really enjoyed bringing into it or even, I suppose, bringing out of the books themselves to bring in here? I mean, yeah, there was a lot. I mean, we just love the way the witches think and just the practical approach to everything and the fact that, you know, magic is, you know, it's almost looked down upon actual magic. It's just the practicality and the strength behind those characters was just wonderful. It's interesting to think about, I mean, the witches' attitude towards death as well, so we've kind of talked about that. And, yeah, headology, I mean, we can all live a better life, I think, through headology, so we were quite keen to talk about that. Any that you particularly? The ogishness. The ogishness, yes. And the power of listening and Naniog's power of listening and how kind of ogishness in circles you like a serpent. And by the time you can smell the tobacco, it's too late. And, yeah, that was a lot. I think, yeah, we found stuff in the middle of it, really. And we were particularly the ending which we both wrote and we would read the chapters out to each other and this was the end when we read and we were basically on Zoom sobbing and drinking whiskey. I drink whiskey for hard chapters and hard scenes and things like that. So, yeah, whiskey and tears over the ending. And, yeah, there was a lot of, like, the kind of dedication as well to our dads. Yeah, we just, there was so much fun and laughter and philosophy and wisdom. And I think we were now, like, full Disgweld Witch experts, I think. We thought we were fairly good when we went in, but, yeah, we were just constantly back and forth. We had all the texts and we were like checking word searches constantly. You found that something doesn't count Hedology as a word or something, which, like... Oh, yeah, that wasn't a simple word. Hedology wasn't a search for word in one of the books. Weird little stuff like that and putting things together that weren't necessarily linked in the books as well. So you wouldn't want to talk about you. Yeah, the cat you. I'd like to talk about me now. Yeah, we just pieced something together as we were writing that. It's never explicitly stated in the books, but you, the cat, that Tiffany gives to Granny A' King. Granny Weatherworks. Granny Weatherworks, sorry. That she gives to Granny Weatherworks. Yeah, it's never explicitly stated where you come from, but we realised in another book, she's a pure white cat, it's referred to that Tiffany had gone to the house. So there's the Widow Cable. It should pass away and a litter of cats had been born on her bed. Pure white kittens and had prioritised practicality and actually ate the body. And she said she had to... Because of the story, she had terrible trouble finding homes for these cats. And then suddenly me and Rhianna were like, wait, wait, is you one of the Widow Cable's kittens? And we realised that that must be what was intended, but it's never explicitly stated because it really sort of dig into the books to realise that that you was one of the cats born on the bed and prioritised survival of a sentimentality. Which is a very weatherwax thing to do, really. Of course. And you just know that you and all of the rest of those cats would turn up their noses at whiskers. Oh, yeah. All of them. So something that's really stuck with me from just reading through it, every now and then lines jump out at gorgeous annotations which are so funny, particularly Naniog, obviously. Every now and then Tiffany has her little tiny spill thoughts coming out and she's just like, would you like to tell me who you're talking about there? And it's just not. But it was in the Fegals chapter and it's just reiterating that idea that it goes to show that what may seem ordinary and unremarkable to you may be heaven to someone else. And then the little annotations from Rob going, big jobs don't know how good you've got it and all that sort of thing. But it feels like the witches and one of the reasons why they have been not just popular and successful but just loved and very deeply loved is because they show that magic at its heart is about hard work and caring and just showing up every day and in turn giving you the inspiration to actually do that and that if you don't appreciate whether it's just the mundanity of everyday life or having to do that, then more for you really. And obviously as the world's leading experts in the witches now what sort of lessons have you taken away from this book particularly? Are you looking at me? I mean there is plenty of hard work actually went into this and it's sort of, yeah. I think we were very kind of well versed in the lessons of the witches. And they're very practical so it was sort of came through my DNA anyway like the practice were very practical people they believed in helping people with skin so turning up doing the hard work rolling up steves like whatever the situation and that was like definitely carried through my family so it was sort of like what were family lessons were kind of then what were family lessons to me were then like turned into kind of a narrative so it was sort of for me it's difficult to know when just living my life and it being part of the narrative that there is also intertwined I think. One of the, oh would you like a glass of water? Would you like a glass of water? Is that what she's asking? Okay perfect. Oh that's lovely. Anybody else wants a glass of water? I think one of the moments that sort of really stopped me was not necessarily anything to do with your dad although obviously all of his work permeates why we're reading this book in here but it was in a piece that I understand that Gabrielle wrote which is the idea of the call and when we think of Hedology and that everyday graft of being a witch this just sort of really not necessarily, it just sort of felt like something that sums up without wanting to be a total philosophy about it but what it means to be a human and now I've obviously made it far too important and everything Gabrielle would you mind I think it's quite near the end It's not the end but it's like pre the end It might be right before our final outro Paz has troubled I was thinking about love Isn't that really good? I was wondering about holding it up to the camera and then I was like that's just going to be the worst tease in the world but I just can't zoom It's a tiny time Right it's a while since I've read this actually Yeah so this is in the chapter the penultimate chapter Life and Death which is where we discuss the practicalities and traditions of death but this piece particularly is on the call At the end of our days witches have the honour of being collected by death themselves We're also gifted with the knowledge of when we're going to die often down to the exact minute This is referred to as the call I don't know how it works None of us do until we receive it The information usually comes to us a day or two in advance which gives us time to clean our cottages put our affairs in order and pick a successor Some witches even choose to hold a big going away party instead of a funeral Ms Treason pointed out when she sent me out to arrange party food and deliver invitations to a big send off before she died I don't see why I shouldn't have some fun I won't be sad or afraid when I eventually receive the call and death comes for me Those feelings are for those left behind I've seen what lies beyond the dark door and as with life it's just another journey Many people I've known and others I've loved have passed through that door before me and no matter how long or short a time we have on the disk the best we can do is leave behind a life well lived or at least leave the world just a little better than we found it I think it would probably be a good point to move on to some audience questions but first of all I'd just really love to thank Rhianna and Gabrielle and we can give them what they deserve and basically read as well by the way I'm sorry for leaping on you and going I think we all enjoyed that so that would be brilliant Has anybody got any questions? Can I also please just do the familiar thing of just maybe saying it is a question and not just a comment that would be wonderful Gentleman on the third row We've got some mics, oh lovely Wouldn't mind passing it down to the third row Was that mark up there? Hello, yes we'll come to you in a minute Sorry Gentleman I don't know all of you individually by now I was just wondering because of your history together are there any plans for a new Discworld video game maybe based on Tiffany or the book or exploring We just never had a even when down was alive we never had a pitch that was right but also I'm doing a lot of other things as well as games TV work, movie work that kind of thing so I know how much time I would have to devote to a Discworld game and it's actually finding the right studio to do it that would be able to kind of convey the humour of it Yeah we just never had the right pitch, we're kind of open to it but it's sort of it's difficult, there's all weird rights that isn't very exciting we're open to it but yeah just never Dad was always very as many of you know, dad was very savvy about games there was never a good pitch that came away I think I've only managed to complete about five minutes of any of the Discworld games They are very tough They're incredibly hard Incredibly hard Exactly Hello, can I have two very quick ones We'll see how good your first one is Question one was one of the things I love about the witch books is how much obscure English folklore is buried in them all the stuff about hares and all that kind of thing and I wondered if that was something that you wanted to carry on and incorporate if there's any new kind of old folklore in there so that was question one Can I give you question two straight? Let them answer question one first I think we incorporated folklore to do with horseshoes and into the iron chapter I remember adding that to folklore but there's also like what I call Pratchit law as well so Mystic gives well gives advice on milking goats and obviously grew up with goats and we had to milk them at least once a day if not more and she talks about the goats are always basically trying to not milk over and one of the things you could do to sort of seduce them a little bit is bite their ear like not hard but goats have ears like carpets but goats you have to establish a hierarchy with goats they've got to know that you're the head goat and within a kind of goat flock the head goat will just nip the other goat's ears so when you're milking goat I learned this from my parents that you can give the ear a gentle bite and it doesn't really hurt the goat but it's like shocked them a little bit they go clearly you're the head goat I'm not going to mess around with the milk bucket and so that isn't actually in the books but that was just a bit of Pratchit goat law that I kind of rolled in I also just know that this is going to really help somebody in a really random situation and if it does please report back to Rihanna I think biting someone's ear can get you out of quite a lot of situations and get you into one and something that I'd completely forgotten from the books and which was really beautifully noted here was after Granny Aikings passing when the little tuft of wool was put on her for her to go and as if to sort of I think in the gods chapter as if to tell the gods it's not her fault she wasn't in church on the hill, being a shepherdess and that was really gorgeous Mark, what's your second question? Thank you, I'm glad you didn't have to bite anyone's ear to get that that's good the other one is like a minor or background character from the books that you've enjoyed being able to shine a light on with this one I mean Geoffrey got... it's not really a minor character but he only appears in the last book Geoffrey's got a nice chapter on Sheds and it was good to get Geoffrey in there and to Esk as well I guess again a sort of starring a cameo character in the Tiffany books Lettas earwig became a lot of fun like later in the day and it was such a I'm so glad we were able to to get it in because all her notes are on like as if cards have been pinned into the book and that works so nicely as well I think, yeah that's about the witches and the coven a little bit Lucy Tocly getting mixed up with Lucy Warbeck or Lucy Tocly There's two Lucy's I'm going back to which was the one in this coven Oh Lucy Warbeck Lucy Tocly as Diomanda Tocly wasn't she and she's changed her Sorry we were just having a chat This is what right in the book was like But there were also some mentions of witches that to be honest I just haven't read the books that they were in so long Mother Goal Hylta gorgeous illustration of Hylta Oh and this is Goodie Wemper Does Goodie ever actually Thank you Yes So there's a gorgeous picture of Goodie Wemper and you get some of some of her advice She was a research witch wasn't she So there's a chapter on the types different types of witches Enterprising witches such as Hylta and Mrs Proust and research witches such as Mrs Level and Goodie And the other witch who was also a wizard Yes I've actually only got this book this morning so I'm afraid my flicking through is not yet familiar enough to be able to go it's here flick wise It's towards the end One of the corrections isn't it Marcesa Yes there we go We have to really dig That's on the latest disworld calendar Marcesa She's gorgeous Is it colour of magic she's in or light fantastic Thank you I knew there'd be experts in the audience Who needs Wikipedia and we've got that Brilliant thank you Catherine yes you're going to Oh we're going live to the libraries We actually have a question online This is a bit of a technical witch skills based question When Tiffany pulls the pain out of Roland's father where did she get that skill from Do other witches do it? Yes there's a whole section on balance and transference section Where we talk about that So Tiffany actually learns that skill from Granny Weatherwax who does it to show off a bit at one point to show off When she hears that Mrs R. Winch has a new book out she's like well can she do this and she pulls the heat from a cup of tea doesn't she and puts it into Tiff's arms so Tiff feels the warmth and it turns the tea to ice and then she teaches Tiffany that skill and then Tiffany uses that to to ease the pain of the Baron when he's suffering and puts that pain then into We go into this in some detail in the books you'll find out a bit more about how to do it and to find the point of balance but she even goes as fast to draw the heat of the sundown That's a winter skill So she learns that actually from Granny Weatherwax I don't know if many other witches use it but that's where she gets it How lovely. I just wanted to check Catherine Were there any other questions from the libraries or shall we come back? That's lovely. Hello We're just going to bring you a microphone if that's all right What was your favourite book What's your favourite disquad book? Good question Oh no Have you just immediately forgotten the next question? No it's just a good question Awful question. How many have you picked? I really love witches aboard That's a big favourite of mine I first read Small Gods when I was studying philosophy A level so I fell in love with Small Gods and Terry signed it for me and drew a turtle in it I'm not going to pick one Small Gods equal rights What about the Tiffany books and that narrows it down a little bit What's your favourite Tiffany book Even that I haven't made it easy Maybe I shall wear it I was just going to say I shall wear it because it's about the evil in people it's more about human evil rather than monstrous evil and somehow that makes it more monstrous and it is the darkest one of the five in some ways and yeah that's probably my favourite but they're also wonderful it's such a wonderful series it was such a pleasure going back I was very familiar particularly with We Free Men but going back through all of them and linking them all together and stuff like that was amazing but sounds like that's your favourite Yeah I love that Oh hello Yes blue dungarees we're just going to bring you a mic I need Tiffany's broomstick Which one ladies was it I was a bit nervous about some thinking people in this room are probably going to know the books so much better than us even after we dove into them so deeply Who's your favourite witch I should have left this to you guys actually that's a brilliant question I'm going to have to say Naniog because I think Naniog has a very different kind of a power it's sort of there's a brilliant picture in there of Granny where she's sort of standing in the middle of a storm with the grambol rich clothes and things but yeah Nani's I think Dad just sort of said that he believed that Nani was actually more powerful than Granny Weatherwax and one of her greatest powers was letting Granny think that that wasn't the case because she's very good at the kind of disguise she has, the friendly affableness and being able to listen very hard and she can get what she wants much more easily than Granny Weatherwax and I think writing this gave me a new appreciation for Naniog and I think we're we're definitely both of us entering more of our Naniog phase of our lives gradually we have some right ogish comments as we were writing so we really leaned into it there's some characters I think we may be identifying a lot with Tiff as well yeah it's very difficult I love Tiffy but yeah Naniog yes I'll go with Naniog I love that you also included a section on almost part time witches you described it like letitia and even to a sense like magrat and that sort of thing and that not everybody had to be wearing midnight and living in a cottage of everywhere and it was just it's really good to sort of flag up all the different ones and obviously Gabrielle you said Granny for why apart from obviously oh yeah I like the fact she is quite flawed as well with a kind of fatitudinous stubbornness and everything and yeah I've got a lot of that stubbornness myself and it was just I think Equal Rights was the book where I really first fell in love with Discworld a friend lent me a friend Helen Phillips at school and she told me Light Fantastic so I read Light Fantastic and thought some of this doesn't make sense and then I realised it was the second then went red colour of magic thought right now things kind of make sense but yeah I really like the style and then I read but yeah then I got Equal Rights and that's just when Discworld really clicked for me just the witches and Esk and Granny I just absolutely I just love the kind of strength and stubbornness but still the bloody mindedness of Granny We should throw the question back and just quickly ask you your favourite is Granny Og I'd say it's about Nanny Nanny can absolutely own Granny well in a way that Granny can not own Nanny My English Gran was a a real Nanny Og We'll have these two young ladies in the second row please Excellent Talk Blue Blue she stretched further How did you get the ideas of making the book We were looking to do something for the 20th anniversary of Tiffany and yeah it seemed like thinking about all the knowledge that Tiffany had acquired from all her years being a witch we thought yeah it makes sense that she would kind of want to pass this on and she's picked up so much from each witch she's trained with and actually she trained with more witches than we've first realised because there are witches in the books that like mislevel that are more central to the books but we actually found there's little bits where she references training with some others just for short periods of time which is the one with the earthworms pull under because one of the earthworms gets a little picture in the book but yeah we wanted to celebrate Tiffany and Tiffany's world and her particular kind of view on witchcraft because I think it's quite the disworld which is quite sort of unique isn't like witchcraft is depicted elsewhere it's much more about people about community about rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work I had my mum posted Twitter of all the Terry Pratchett books that she has and yeah so yeah it's been lovely interacting with you on Twitter and also I've got two questions so the first one the first one is do you think you're going to make a movie like movies of the Tiffany aching books ooh I mean we love there's been various things going on in the background but it's actually finding finding the right home for it where if you go to Rob's talk next month actually I believe one of the most powerful things that the estate has that Rob and I run is the ability to say no to things and it has to be right and I've been working on some Tiffany stuff of my own and it's about finding the right home it's a bit of a difficult creative time at the moment and we're determined that when we go for it it has to be right but we'd love to I work across all kinds of mediums so I work in TV and film and comics and games so I'd love to explore it further but it's finding the right partners and the right avenues and I can assure you that when we do it it will be right she's very good I'm a professional screen actor so it can't be too long because I'm already done 10 points for Shirt's Bar I can't shop me so much I can't actually speak lovely, could we have the lady in yellow oh ok can we are you going to write another campaigns and companions book because I've got this one here already we'd love to there was such a lot of fun and I wrote all the poo jakes which I'm really proud of oh sorry and the lady in yellow just in third row thank you and then we will move back across you mentioned at the beginning how you've met working in an industry that was very male dominated and certainly when I was reading Discworld in the 90s as I was growing up it wasn't that common to find books that were full of women working together and women working with other women and definitely aching books have continued that and particularly then women learning from other women and I wondered if you could give us any comment on your thoughts about the importance of the witches as female characters particularly in a fantasy universe that's a really excellent question I think that's why we all found the witches books just so refreshing because of as you say, books were all just written very much of a style and very very male dominated and the female characters just there to titillate really and just to have these books with such immensely strong characters and like you say that kind of camaraderie but also the little kind of digs at each other along the way they were just beautifully written it's amazing that a kind of male fantasy author actually wrote such fantastic strong female characters and this is, I mean, Rhianna and I have always been so passionate about the witches books because of that and like you said we've worked in very all male industries and we know how refreshing it is for women to actually see themselves represented and to see themselves represented in what's usually very male fantasy is just I think that's why so many women are into this world whereas other fantasy authors won't mention any of the fantasy authors by name have more of a male audience but there's so many women who absolutely adore the disc world books and it's absolutely as you say yeah it's yeah you also do have a brilliant section on the book about the cunning man and witch hunting and everything in general and I think one of the less you know cheerful and uplifting about this book because it really does bring back to the overarching history of how women have been treated with suspicion whether they're young, old or just extant through the years and that was brilliant so sorry that was my comment not a question but I can do that because I'm up here anybody towards the back, anybody hands up lovely chap in the back row if that's alright hello having now written both independently and and as a co-authorship do you have a preference? oh I really enjoy working with Gow I would love to find more projects together it's nice actually I'm sure we both really enjoy both writing and writing together but what's really great about writing together is you hold each other to account a lot more and it's really nice to have someone on you to actually get on with it and to kind of just have that wonderful feedback as you're writing because we were working in live documents so we tried to leave each other alone for the first draft but there were times when each other's documents were watching each other birthing jokes and then making suggestions in the comments books at the sides that was really great to just getting that sort of ongoing feedback rather than writing a book entirely on your own submitting it to the publisher I'd say this is my favourite most favourite thing I've written I think it was just easier more fun than I thought it was going to be we didn't argue at all did we? no I mean we don't argue that much we don't but there's some gentle bickering sometimes about the number of mentions of nice cups of tea and how creative we are at the start of a sentence it's gentle bickering but it just I think how our kind of we sort of merge our styles and like there is you know as you were saying earlier sometimes we didn't know like whether who had written what line so they just kind of like merge together really nicely I mean you talk about merging styles but also obviously you're using characters that your dad wrote for years how did you manage to avoid trying to ape what he might have said or written and just to make it sound realistic to the characters but without trying to imitate there's a shape there's a shape to it cos I've done a fair bit of adaptation from book to screen and the thing about adaptation is it's kind of what you cut out what you leave in how you sew it together and the sewing together is about how you keep things in the shape of work and so it's finding the right type of thread to just sew everything together again after you cut bits out and certainly when I've worked on adapting dad's work as well I could get the thread easier like there was something in the blood that helped me go okay that's the right thread to sew it together because I've sort of drunk from the same a lot of the same knowledge well springers dad and I grew up with him and he taught me not how to be right about how to be human being but sort of writer by stealth really and that that's definitely helped me a lot so we wanted to make sure that the characters felt like the characters but we wanted to bring a little new insights and sort of weave things together and keep it in the shape of disc world I think as well cos we were writing through the voice of Tiffany Erking we were kind of writing as Tiffany we weren't trying to write as Terry Pratchers we were writing in Tiffany's voice which probably made it a lot easier for us not to try and not to try and be Terry Pratchers and trying to capture Tiffany's sort of journal voice as well was I think that was a little bit of a challenge cos often a lot of the humour comes around observations in Tiffany's head and from characters around Tiffany so it was to make her voice kind of entertaining as well you know as well as all the characters around her and I think yeah we struck a good balance Catherine we're going live to libraries I've got a question from Andy do you feel there's something sad about the way Tiffany's fellow villagers never quite know how to deal with her being a witch and in some cases are quite frightened of her and what does that say about her as a character I think maybe the fear is a little bit important I think that's what Granny Mather having people being a little bit afraid of her you can be useful but then so can how like you know I think Nanny Og would sort of suggest that that's the Nanny Og Granny Weatherwax thing so I think Nanny wouldn't necessarily want the fear because she can get in a different route by being friendly and affable whereas Granny Weatherwax could get in via fear so it is I think it would depend on which you talk to her about more accept them on the chalk towards the end I think she's more I think her people just people of the chalk were just not quite sure how to deal with this was little tiff who went away and is now back in a witch so I think it took them a while to come around to it but I feel they did more towards the end of the series yeah it's the respect we write about respect a lot and that's such a key to to being a witch and Nanny Og and Granny Weatherwax kind of argue a little bit about how to get respect and what respect respect and it's all about respect and bees everything is about bees hello teal shirt in the middle just going to pass you a microphone okay this is kind of I think building on some of the other questions but having written so much about the lives of witches and the experiences would you yourselves if you were in Discworld wish to be witches and if so what type or would you prefer a different role and to explore kind of the other opportunities that the world offers so I didn't cut just the last bit would we like to be Discworld witches basically or like any other roles within Discworld oh I'm just thinking if I was what kind of witch I'd probably like to be kind of a Nanny Og kind of witch at the centre of the community oh do you know I kind of I don't know maybe I'm a bit more standoffish I don't know you're a mum I'm not only a mum of cats yeah I know I mean I do like the little cottage with the kind of goats and the chickens and that's really how I know her actually I dig her up in the cottage with goats and chickens I think you know I'd like to I'd probably like to if I'm seeing University relax their policies on women then you know retiring there getting a nice little you know a nice set of rooms and your meals maybe that's quite a good retirement that would have dad's retirement plan would be to do that Trinity College in Dublin it was just like yeah we do a kind of porterhouse blue kind of thing I've been an academic it's not as nice as it is so yeah I kind of yeah we'll have a Tom Sharp view on that but yeah like I I feel we're both quite witchy anyway yeah halfway there already oh lovely chuck the beard and the grey jumper to stuff it back oh it's Liam hello any thoughts about doing any more similar books to us it feels like we format would work really well with like the city watch I mean we've put some ideas to Robert Robert mith Wilkins and who have you been speaking to we do we do actually think that Horace the cheese in the magic sausage should be like a new children's book sorry to just point your bridge oh it was like that but yes there are certainly kind of we'll kind of see how this one does this is very non-committal so it sounds quite yes Mr Wilkins second row staring at his feet Mr Wilkins second row staring at his feet Mr Wilkins second row staring at his feet thank you oh lovely this chap just here with the glasses yep one minute hello there's this big resurgence now in the culture of witchcraft and I was wondering what role you might think that is playing for people why so many people are interested in witchcraft and being witches not just in a fantasy context but in a quote real world we were talking about the MA in witchcraft I think it might be Exeter University because we felt like we probably already written the dissertation there but actually I think it's a very I mean there's obviously different types of witchcraft depicted in literature but I think what is particularly pertain about this world which is is the being there for people the community the helping people with skin doing the hard work I understand that it might not be awful but it's your responsibility like looking after people I think that's in this kind of day and age is more important than ever speaking up for them that has no voices it's become it's become even more important so I think particularly it makes the disc world which is resonating in a way that I don't think they ever have as much before yes on witch succinct notes I'm afraid that's all we've got time for this afternoon but just a huge thank you to Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent absolutely they'll be signing outside in just a couple of minutes I should just say if anybody is interested in real life which is as well as witches in fiction we've got a fantastic down the 4th of November called a festival of the accused which is some history, some fiction some witchcraft so please check that out thanks again