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This part Sunday ended up being quite an eventful one for us. What with it being Father’s Day and Youth Day, it was already a special day. But add in a whole lot of gastro for one little boy in our family and my first live interview on national radio, and you’ve got a real mix of a day! And to think how I agonised over the decision in the first place!
The original plan had been that Craig and I would go through to the SABC studios in Seapoint. I’d do the half-hour or so interview, and then head back to the family lunch at Craig’s folks’ place. Then Sam got sick. So, Craig stayed home with the boys, and the girls came along to the studios to experience the other side of the radio broadcast.
And what fun it was! They took dozens of photos and a few video clips, including a few selfies!
They got to see the sound engineer at work, learn what a "chill room" is and see what a studio looks like. With our president doing his annual Youth Day speech, we had some time to chat to our interviewer, Nancy Richards of SAfm’s Literature show (amongst others she does in the week). She interviewed the girls, off air, and they were delighted when she mentioned them being in the studio, on air later on.
Nancy was a great interviewer and presenter. I think that it’s always tough to interview someone you’ve never met, know very little about and is quite possibly not from the same philosophical viewpoint as yourself. I imagine that it must take quite a bit of talent to ask great questions that draw out great answers, giving the listeners something interesting to engage with.
I had been feeling quite nervous about the whole thing initially. But, after our off-air chat beforehand, my nerves faded and the only strangeness lurking at the beginning of the on-air interview was the awkwardness of getting into the flow of conversation, given that I’d never before had to speak into a radio mike, wear fancy headphones and answer questions for just the one person in front of me, but also, really, for a few million people listening. But Nancy was so easy to talk to, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
The reason for the interview was to highlight my book, Seekers of the Lost Boy. Since it is set in South Africa and about young kids, I imagine that the producer of the show figured it would be a fitting story for the Youth Day show. It’s not often that authors get this call, and so it was a huge privilege and opportunity to promote Seekers on national radio. We had a great chat about the book, but, with the protagonists being homeschooled kids, and myself being a homeschooling mom, our conversation quickly went the homeschooling route. And what fun that was!
I was able to chat about some of my most favourite subjects, like Sonlight, Footprints, Charlotte Mason, literature-based education and more. It was such a wonderful opportunity to speak about homeschooling things in a positive light. Of course, I have gone over the interview and picked up on the things I wish I had said and hadn’t said. I would’ve liked to have included everything there is to say in answer to every question – I did feel as if I was only able to cover a small portion of the reality in each answer. And, I do cringe at my many moments of inarticulate umming, ahhing and stumbling over and grasping at words! But, the reality of the situation dictates that I couldn’t have changed it in any way. Yes, I know I could have said a whole lot a whole lot better, I’ve had to remind myself to cut myself some slack – it’s radio after all, with totally unprepared questions and I don’t have the advantage of time to think, in the same way that I do with writing. mostly I think that it went well.
If you’d like to listen, click the embedded audio below, or if you’re reading from RSS or email, then click this link: http://youtu.be/dl5lVTUuMic