Sam Sedgman, author of 'The Galileo Heist' - Children's author discusses finding magic in the real world, being confident with curiosity, and getting it finished
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sam Sedgman is a 'British Book Award' winning author, who writes fantastic adventure stories for children. He started co-writing with MG Leonard, who has also been a guest on this show, working on the 'Adventures on Trains' series. She was a published author, he was a train nerd, it worked perfectly. In the process they won and were nominated for many awards. Now, he's writing on his own.
'The Galileo Heist' is the new novel in the 'Isaac Turner Investigates' series, which sees Isaac on a quest across Italy, to discover the wonder of light. Sam loves to take an interest, learn every strange fact he can about it, and then use it for a gripping adventure. In the series, he's explored time with 'The Clockwork Conspiracy', maps in 'The Forbidden Atlas', and now light in 'The Galileo Heist'. Sam has also published two non-fiction books - 'Epic Adventures' and 'Epic Cities'.
You can hear why he struggles to get things finished, also how he managed moving from co-writing to solo-writing, and why he builds words around a quirk of numbers.
If you know a child who needs to read more, you'd do well to introduce them to Sam's work. Get a copy - uk.bookshop.org/shop/writersroutine
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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 |
| 0:11.4 | you into what makes them brilliant. It's all about the authors too. You can join Philippa, |
| 0:17.0 | who for the last six years has been chatting to some of the biggest authors around and discovering their newest work. |
| 0:23.6 | If you're a reader looking for new book recommendations and getting to know your favourite writers, |
| 0:28.8 | this is the perfect show for you with in-depth chats and spoiler-free book reviews |
| 0:33.8 | 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 |
| 0:43.9 | they want to go on holiday, and the gossip about bits of their life that you won't find |
| 0:48.9 | anywhere else. |
| 0:50.9 | 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 the quick book reviews podcast is a lighthearted look at authors and what you might love about their new book you can get two episodes a week, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:12.0 | Just search for the Quick Book Reviews podcast. |
| 1:23.9 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. |
| 1:28.2 | This week we're chatting to Sam Sedgman. |
| 1:30.8 | Sam is a fantastic author of adventure books for kids. |
| 1:34.9 | We talk about his love of finding the magic in the real world. |
| 1:40.2 | Also why he tries to remember the classic advice, don't get it right, get it written at all times. |
| 1:47.4 | I went out into the world and I wanted to be a writer, but I had studied the greatest works in the canon and I felt like I had to hold myself to an incredibly high standard. |
| 1:58.2 | And I would start writing something and think it was bad, decide it was bad, and get stuck. Like everyone gets stuck when you write anything and think, well, I have to go back to the beginning and make it better. And I would go back to the beginning and try and make it better. And then I would get stuck again. I would think, well, this time, if I go back, I can start again and make it better. And I would keep doing that. And I would never get to the end of anything. So I would never make anything. I was writing all the time, but I wasn't producing |
| 2:23.5 | anything. I had loads of starts and no finished products. And you can hear what writing |
| 2:29.6 | kids books has made him realize when he reads books for adults. I realized when I wrote for kids that |
| 2:34.5 | like you need a good plot and plot is interesting and I love plot. And so I tend to be very |
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