Matt Whyman reads from his novel The Savages.
The Savages author Matt Whyman talked to Book Award participants on Friday, explaining how he wasn't very good at school(!) but why reading was so important. He also discussed some of the difficult subject matter in his shortlisted novel and why the issues it deals with are so relevant for young people.
Here are some of the other things that we found out along the way:
Matt Whyman spends his days writing, playing with the sausage dog and writing some more.
He realised that meat responsibly sourced is quite expensive, and, as the family food bill was quite high, he decided to change to being vegetarian. He found a recipe for pinto bean chilli and made that for dinner; everybody loved it. After a while of vegetarian dishes he told his family what they were eating and why, needless to say they didn't fancy it any more. This made Matt think about food and how we view it, wouldn't it be funny to have a family to totally focused on food, but what sort?
This was the inspiration for The Savages with a twist; of course, having read the book, we know what happens.
To follow on there is now another book called The American Savage.
Lots of brilliant questions were put forward by the students from both the Weald School and primary partners, and each student who asked a question got a post card in return which they were able to get Matt to sign after his talk
Matt Whyman is also one of the four authors confirmed to attend our Book Award Celebration Evening on the 3rd March.
