ABOUT US
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Benjamin Read
Benjamin Read tells stories, whether they’re novels, comics, films (or just massive fibs).
He is co-creator of the children’s book trilogy, THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, published by Chicken House, and now available worldwide in over 16 languages.
He also wrote the multi-award nominated graphic novel series, PORCELAIN, the children’s book, NIGHT POST, and a host of other comics including BRIAR, BUTTERFLY GATE, TRUE GRIT, and SUPER 8. He also wrote and produced the film ARMISTICE. He is one of the founder members of the IMPROPER BOOKS comics studio, and is fuelled by tea and, increasingly, too many biscuits and regret. He has recently retired to the Downs to keep books.
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Laura Trinder
Laura Trinder creates pictures and stories.
She LOVES books! Reading, illustrating, writing, recommending and editing them. She even enjoys tidying them and can’t help doing it while browsing bookshops (curse of the ex-bookseller).
Laura is co-creator of The Midnight Hour trilogy, which is published by Chicken House and lucky enough to be available worldwide in many languages.
She works from home in Hertfordshire, UK, where she lives with her husband, Chris Wildgoose, a million houseplants, and now her baby daughter too. In her spare time she enjoys growing vegetables and flowers on her allotment and volunteering as a teen mentor for MCR Pathways.
Her favourite things are: books, dogs, hot buttered toast, plants, huge scarves that turn into blankets, walks, bonfires, hammocks, and everything autumnal.
INTERVIEWS
10 things about Trindles & Read
(For FemaleFirst.com, February 2019)
1. Ben and Laura first met on an independent film set: The entire film was shot inside one house. Laura lived there during filming, sleeping in the protagonist’s bed, using his bathroom, and generally being a walking continuity problem. Ben was writing and producing the film, while Laura made props. They spent their evenings in the attic with Chris Wildgoose (Laura’s future husband) where they discovered their mutual love of books and comics.
2. They co-founded an indie comics studio: After all the attic chat, the three of them set up Improper Books, a studio with a focus on creator-owned stories with a touch of the fairy tale or the otherworldly. Improper Books kicked off in 2009 and has grown to include a talented group of creatives, producing comics that have been published overseas and adapted for film.
3. They're dog-obsessed: Ben and Laura are both desperate to own a dog, but neither have one. They console themselves by sending each other pictures of particularly good ones they’ve spotted. One day. One day.
4. They both live on farms: Although based in separate counties, they both happen to live on farmland. All of their business calls are conducted while trudging up hills or swishing through crops. Ben also sends Laura photos of particularly nice tractors.
5. Their debut novel is inspired by their debut comic: Night Post is a wordless children’s comic that follows a postman on his midnight shift, making weird deliveries to even weirder recipients. While developing the book, their ideas naturally began to expand. They went off on enjoyable tangents, imagining backstories to insignificant background characters and glimpsing a world beyond this one night. The Midnight Hour is that world.
6. They share a background in bookselling: After working in a dog food factory (which is as fun as it sounds) Ben became an antiquarian bookseller. He left bookselling to become a ‘republisher of old fairy tales’, before exploring the world of independent film and comics. Laura was a part-time Waterstones bookseller for 11 years, alongside her art degree and then her freelance work. They’re now both full-time book creator people.
7. They're big on nicknames: Laura's emails from Ben usually start with one of his many nicknames for her. They include (but are not limited to): Trindles, Trindlemouse, Trindoogle, Trindlebug, and Dora. Laura calls him Read.
8. They've both been reluctant models: As a child, Laura was persuaded to model a series of novelty Disney telephones. She hated being photographed and was promised a choc ice for her troubles, which she’s still waiting for (with 20 years of ice cream interest). Ben, and one of his magnificent tweed suits, can be found in a book about Coorie (the Scottish answer to Hygge).
9. They are creatures of comfort: Biscuits, blankets, tea, cosy jumpers, good books, crackling fire. All the good stuff. This is what gets them through life. In The Midnight Hour, Emily has a hedgehog who spends most of the story sleeping in her coat pocket and eating all her snacks. If they could be any animal, it would be Hoggins.
10. They have a long-distance working relationship: The majority of their work is created in their separate work spaces, communicating over email (and Whatsapp. Lots of Whatsapp). Laura shares a home studio with her comic artist husband, whereas Ben likes to travel. While working on The Midnight Hour, work pinged back and forth between Laura’s Hertfordshire desk and Ben in the Cotswolds, Cornwall, Paris, Edinburgh, London, the French Pyrenees and Spain. They did however meet up in the Scottish Highlands for a week or so, to kick off their work on the book together.
Interview with OwlCrate Jr
For their February 2020 subscription box.
Hello Benjamin and Laura! The Midnight Hour is such a wild story. Where did the idea first come from and how did it grow into the final book?
B: A long time ago a friend of mine posted a little surprise package through my door at midnight. As well as scaring the life out of me, it also immediately made me think of what a great start that would be to a story - who would send midnight post? Why exactly at midnight? Somewhere along the line that little acorn of an idea ran head on into a much bigger idea. What if midnight wasn’t just a time? What if it was a place as well? Maybe that’s where all the magic was.
L: From there, Ben wrote a hugely detailed encyclopaedia of a magical world called The Midnight Hour and all its inhabitants. It was packed full of exciting characters and creatures, but the acorn had become a huge oak tree and we needed to narrow it all down in order to find our story. After banging our heads together and some great chats with our publisher and editor at Chicken House, the story of The Midnight Hour appeared from the mist.
Tell us about the process of co-creating a book. What are the best bits and what are the hardest parts?
B: It’s all hard. (Joking!... Kind of). I find ideas to be easy, too easy. It all tumbles out and there’s so much of it. So, getting it all down in the first place is straight forward. Carving that into something worth reading is the challenging part. It’s an old answer, but writing is easy. Re-writing is the hard bit. The best bit though is getting to work with one of my best friends. We just do the ‘making each other laugh game’ that we do most the time anyway, and turn those gags into something that people seem to want to read. Who knew that would ever become our job?
L: What he said! The best part is definitely working together with Ben to dream up magical things. Co-creating is really special, because you get to see your ideas evolve in a way they wouldn’t if you were working alone. The hardest part for me is the rollercoaster of it all. The book is just starting to come together and look good, when you realise it would be better if you changed this or that. Then you have to unpick the whole thing and it all seems terrible again. It’s going to feel really messy for a while, like you’re back at the starting line, but you know it will end up better for it.
What were your favorite books as a kid that turned you into lifelong readers and writers?
B: Oh god, all of them. In terms of really junior influence, I’m from a certain generation of British fantasy readers who were spoiled, so The Hobbit (obvs), all of Narnia (despite my growing suspicions about the lion), but also Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Masefield’s The Box of Delights, and Susan Cooper’s haunting The Dark is Rising books.
L: I’m very lucky in that my dad read to me every night as a child. Sometimes from books, sometimes from his imagination. My favourites were the Frog and Toad tales by Arnold Lobel, anything by Shirley Hughes, The Monster Bed by Jeanne Willis, and an anthology called Monster Stories For Bedtime (illustrated by Jane Launchbury). Once I moved up to middle grade books I didn’t read much. I absolutely adored The Secret Garden and Harry Potter, but for some reason this didn’t inspire me to try other titles. It wasn’t until I got a job in a bookshop (aged 19) that I truly fell in love with books. I’m quite sad when I think about all the amazing stories I missed out on as a kid, but I’m making up for it by reading them all now (and creating a few too).
What food would you take on an adventure to make sure you never knowingly under-snacked?
B: Scotch eggs, for easy spherical packing purposes. Sarnies because they are the ultimate in food design. Crisps to put in the sarnies. And humous because I have had to accept that I have become addicted to it.
L: I would pack these oaty cookies that my husband and I like to bake. We usually take them on long walks, or especially exciting trips to the cinema. Crisps (chips) are also a must for a good adventure! I also love houmous and bread, so perhaps I’d just let Ben do the packing and then steal all his snacks.
What is up next for you both?
B: Midnight Hour II!!!! Then sleep like a hibernating bear once it is handed in.
L: I’m so excited that we’ve very nearly almost finished the second book in the Midnight Hour series! Then I need to draw all the chapter header illustrations. Then it’s on to book 3!
A video introduction to us and our books!
A video introducing Benjamin Read, Laura Trinder, and the Midnight Hour books.
Interview with Leopold, May 2021
1. You and Benjamin have created this wonderful trilogy about Emily and her adventures in the Midnight Hour together. Would you please tell us more about your cooperation?
Laura - Benjamin and I are great friends and have enjoyed working together for many years. The world and characters of the Midnight Hour grew from the brilliant imagination of Ben, but a bit of us both goes into creating our magical adventures. We work together to plan each book, then Ben starts writing away and I edit the story as we go. Towards the end of the writing process, I start to illustrate the chapter headers. In fact, I'm illustrating some today for our third book, The Midnight Hunt.
2. Emily finds out that her mother is originally from the Midnight Hour, a pocket dimension of Londen frozen in Victorian times that contains the last remnants of magic in the world. Her father also has an important and very dangerous job there. You can enter the Midnight Hour only at midnight exactly. How did you get the idea of a secret world, only accessible at midnight?
Ben - Well, a long time ago a friend of mine posted a little surprise package through my door at midnight. As well as scaring the life out of me, it also made me think what a great start to a story that would be - who would send midnight post? Why exactly at midnight? What if midnight wasn't just a time, but a place too? These irresistible questions, combined with a lifetime of reading spooky stories, history books, and fairy tales, all jumbled up to create the Midnight Hour.
3. Emily discovers she is a Pooka: she can transform into other forms. Emily learns from her uncle it is your personality that inspires the physical form you will have. If you would be a Pooka, what kind of animal do you think you would be?
Laura - I would love to magically turn into an animal! The Pooka in our stories are inspired by shapeshifting creatures of Celtic folklore. In some Irish fairy tales, they can change into many different animals, but our Pooka of the Midnight Hour have three animal forms: hare, hound, and horse. I'm most like a hound, as I love taking long walks outside, sleeping by the fire, pats on the head, and eating lots of biscuits.
4. Emily is a very original character. At the most frightening situations, she still keeps her wit and her big mouth. She doesn’t hide in a corner to cry but she tells her enemies exactly what she thinks of them. This is very refreshing. Where did you find the inspiration for Emily’s personality? Is she inspired by someone you know? (We would love to meet her!) And have you ever gotten into trouble because of a big mouth, like Emily?
Ben - Oh, my mouth gets me into trouble all the time! Perhaps a bit less of recent years but, like Emily, I just can’t help myself sometimes. I can hear myself saying things that I just shouldn’t. Sadly, not everybody thinks I’m as funny as I do. Emily is a combination of some of the best women in my life - my daughter, and a number of my fierce and brilliant best friends. She’s also the living version of that voice in my head that just can’t help itself. It's much better when it’s Emily doing it rather than me though!
5. In the Midnight Hour, Emily meets lots of magical creatures, some kind, some evil, some breathtaking. A very special character is the Library, a very powerful woman who is, in a certain way, all books and stories ever written. Without (new) stories she can’t exist, she literally needs books to survive. I figure reading is very important to you? Is that the reason you wrote the Midnight-trilogy, to pass on your love for books and reading to children? Would you be able to survive without new books to read?
Laura - I'm the sort of person who can enjoy my favourite things over and over again, without growing tired of them. It's very comforting to revisit stories you know and love. With that in mind, I could probably 'survive' without new books, but I don't think we can thrive without them. We need new stories and new voices behind them, to explore our ever-changing world. I think it's important to wear the shoes of others, whether they're stepping into a magical land, leaving guilty footprints at a crime scene, or simply walking home from school. Each new book, each new pair of shoes, walks a new path to empathy, joy, comfort, escape, understanding, adventure.