Martyn Bedford - Writer

Here’s a Q&A interview about my reading habits which I completed recently for North Lincolnshire County Council’s library service:

What are your all time favourite reads (this might include books, songs, poems, song lyrics etc)?
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (a novel)
January Gladsong by Brian Patten (A poem – it was read out at my wedding in January 1994)
Shoot! magazine c1970s (A must-read during my football mad teens)
The New Policeman by Kate Thompson (a teen/young-adult novel)
A book of song lyrics by Bob Dylan

What is your favourite word?
Pantechnicon – apparently it was the first long word I learnt to pronounce as a child, and it always reminds me of my mum and dad.

What was your favourite childhood book?
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum; and all the Famous Five novels by Enid Blyton.

What was the last thing you read before answering these questions?
The typescript of my current novel-in-progress, which I’m editing.

Where would be your favourite place to read?
On a comfy sofa with a glass of beer or wine to hand.

If you were only allowed to read one last thing in your life what would it be?
A note from the Grim Reaper, granting me immortality.

If you want to read responses to the same Q&A by other children’s and teen/YA authors – including David Almond, Alan Gibbons, Keith Gray, Tom Palmer and Marcus Sedgwick, please click here.