Ollie George Clark, author of 'Youngest Faircrest and the Search for a Sorcerer’ - Award-winning writer discusses making reading accessible, why strict word-counts help the pace, and finding the audience

Writer's Routine

Dan Simpson

Arts, Hobbies, Books, Leisure

4.9 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ollie George Clark is an award-winning right, who is having a moment. He's got 3 new TV comedy-dramas under commission. He's written plays that have been performed across the UK, had criticially-acclaimed stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and won the 'British Comedy Guide Sitcom Competition'.

His new novel is 'Youngest Faircrest and the Search for a Sorcerer'. It's the start of a new middle-grade trilogy, about Youngest who on the day of the Deciding, during which every 12 year old learns who they'll be forever, decides to take his future into his own hands.

We talk about setting it in a different world, and making it relatable to a younger audience. Also you can hear about his path to publication, and how much pressure he feels having signed a contract for a trilogy of stories. You can hear about how he finds the funny later on, how much he analyses his writing day, and why his word-count is so strict.

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This week's episode is sponsored by the 'Quick Book Reviews Podcast'. Listen in to Philippa Hall and her fantastic guests wherever you've got this show.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode of Writers Routine is sponsored by the Quick Book Reviews podcast.
0:05.0	If this show takes you behind the scenes of writing books, the Quick Book Reviews podcast takes you into what makes them brilliant.
0:13.0	It's all about the authors too. You can join Philippa, who for the last six years, has been chatting to some of the biggest authors around and discovering
0:22.0	their newest work. If you're a reader looking for new book recommendations and getting to know
0:27.1	your favourite writers, this is the perfect show for you with in-depth chats and spoiler-free book
0:33.3	reviews in perfect bite-sized chunks to fit easily into your day.
0:38.7	Philippa gets into all the fun questions too, finding out what authors like to eat, where they
0:43.9	want to go on holiday, and the gossip about bits of their life that you won't find anywhere
0:49.4	else. All that with some very speedy book reviews, getting right to the heart of all the newest stuff out there and the best ones for you to read.
1:01.8	The Quick Book Reviews podcast is a lighthearted look at authors and what you might love about their new book.
1:08.3	You can get two episodes a week, wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for
1:12.9	the Quick Book Reviews podcast. Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine
1:27.3	this week chatting to Ollie George Clark, a brand new episode of writers' routine this week, chatting to
1:28.3	Olly George Clark, whose brand new novel is Youngest Faircrest and the Search for a Sorcerer.
1:34.7	It's the start of a middle grade trilogy.
1:37.7	We talk about how he builds a plot when he's very much a character-first author.
1:43.6	Also, why his main thought when writing for children
1:46.9	was to just make it utterly accessible. Readability is at the heart of all of it, which I know
1:52.4	almost sounds silly given it's a book, but I'm very conscious that at this age in particular,
1:57.7	you can encounter sort of confident and less confident readers.
2:01.0	And I was definitely in the less confident category.
2:04.2	So in terms of accessibility and readability,
	...

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