Speaker 1: Hi u er hello, when good morning you too.
Speaker 2: It looks like you're playing the drum for you're at
this jockey. I can't tell him that picture. We're seeing
a guy with headphones on, but I'll touch them.
Speaker 1: I am a radio personality. We don't plays as a
friend once told me recently says, you don't play discs
anymore our computer.
Speaker 2: It's true. I'm aging myself. I was a disc jackie.
How I work my way through college.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your multiple books and everything that you
do in in igniting a child's imagination.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we've got lots of books, and right
now the new books coming out are a new early
reader chapter book series called Stinky's Stories, and I think
that's really going to encourage kids to start reading. Definitely.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of fun and it's very silly, and
we're hoping that kids don't just learn to read, but they.
Speaker 2: Love to reading and they have fun reading, because I
think that's the whole at this particular, just for kids
kindergarten through second third grade, and that's when you're just
sort of learning to read, and if it's more fun,
then you don't want to do it a little more often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I have neighbors that have got children that
are perfect for this journey with your writing. And it's
so fun to watch them, you know, as they get
into the story and they explain it. They'll read a
page and then they come back and explain it what
just happened.
Speaker 2: And they pick up on the characters. And there's a
lot of funny voices in this book, So I think
they'll have fun doing that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the people reading too, the children will also
really enjoy it. There's so many funny characters and fun
voices to play with, and then the kids will probably
want to do it the second time around, do it themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We've done a lot of books. I've done I
think seventy six books have been published, but these are
the first ones for this early reader's group. And that's
kind of fun because that sort of paves the way
for all the other books. They're not going to want
to read the rest of my collection if they don't
have fun reading, So this will make reading a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1: Don't you think though, that as we try to get
more children to read, we should also teach them how
to write. That's always been one of my things with teachers.
Is that okay, now you go write your story. Go
get let me see what you're thinking about.
Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the great things about Stinky stories,
as they're constructed around the kids don't like the way
a story like Jack and the Beanstock or The Boy
Cried Wolf ends, and they say, well, and Stinky advises
them all would just use your imagination, we can come
up with a new ending. So I think this will
encourage kids to start making up stories of their own
and going and it's sort of a shaggy dog story,
weaves all over the place, sort of improvisational spirit to
it all, and I think kids will see how much
fun it is making up a story as well as
reading one.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like a child still when you're writing.
Speaker 3: At you? Well, I'll tell you he's a twelve year
old or an eight year old in the best sense
of the word. He really is. I mean he lives
in that mindset because he spends so much time with kids.
He does a lot of school visits, and it's just
a lot of fun. I tell you, it's a fun
way to live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, never try to lose a childish delight
with everything.
Speaker 1: Was this the style of books that you grew up reading.
Then did you get it from like the weekly Reader
like we did used to do in elementary school?
Speaker 2: Well, I think more I grew up we had c
Dig Run, Run, Dig Run, and we did have the
Weekly Reader. But my love of reading and storytelling came
more from watching Rocky and Bullinko, particularly the fractured fairy tales.
I always loved the fractured fairy tales where they took
an existing story and they sort of turned it out
at the air. And that's kind of what we've done
with stinky stories. So I guess I've come full circle
to child I was when I was in second grade.
Speaker 1: Now, JJ, were you in Radio two? Because you've got
a fantastic voice.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
Speaker 3: I actually started in musical theater and then I started
doing voiceovers, but never radio, I mean radio commercials.
Speaker 2: And what was really fun as we got to do
the stinky story audio books.
Speaker 1: You did, Yes, you did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: It was really fun.
Speaker 2: She did most of the heavy lifting. I just did
the goofy voices.
Speaker 3: All the little guest stars that always steal the shows.
Speaker 1: So do you get to sit down and watch the
reactions of kids because the words that you have on
the page are just so powerful and so entertaining.
Speaker 2: From time to time I do a lot of in
person's school visits or getting ready to hit the road
again as the school year starts, and there you get
to see the kids laugh because that is as you know,
as a radio personality, you probably say something funny on
the air and three days later people go, hey, that
was funny. I remember when I was doing it working
my way through college. Oh you were funny on Saturday,
they would tell you. On Tuesday, here Wednesday, So yeah,
you too missed that immediate reaction, which is why we
love going to the schools. And sometimes we'll go to
bookstores and do events and get to meet the kids.
And one of my favorite pictures I haven't behind me
on the wall here a photographer took this school visit
every single teach, your parent, adult, and the whole auditorium
is laughing.
Speaker 1: So developing your characters, especially with the stinky stories, I mean,
how do you It's got to be a collaboration between
the two of you and designing each one so perfectly.
Speaker 2: It sure is. We started out you had stinky first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love to. We're very silly around our house,
so we make up voices for everything, like the chairs.
Speaker 2: Like oh I have a broken leg, I'm so sad.
Speaker 3: So we always have like silly things going on around
our house and silly voices. And I grew up with
millions of stuffed animals and I love them. And Stinky
is a stuffy in the library. He lives in the library,
And so we started talking about when I was a
child and I had all these stuffed animals and coming
up with voices, and I had stories for them. And
Chris when he goes to speak with kids, he's in
the library a lot, and he's seeing all these stuffed animals.
And sometimes when you improvise.
Speaker 2: A story, well, in my school visit, I usually improvise
a story with the kids because I spent a lot
of time doing in front of comedy and I would
always make up a story about the stuffed animals what
they do at night when the kids aren't in the library.
So that led to it. And then like any story,
you know, you're right, you got Stinky, who's your main character. Well,
we need someone to encourage him. So as Wag's the dog,
that's great and then there's also there's always a naysayer,
and that's mister Stuffington who's like, oh, the story is over,
we can't take it any further.
Speaker 3: Then that's Jerry. The draft was very confused.
Speaker 2: What's going in here?
Speaker 3: She doesn't know what's happening.
Speaker 2: And then you have the kids and so yeah, you've
always when you're writing a story, you want to make
sure everybody is in it. There for a reason.
Speaker 1: Wow, if you could see the studio, I still have
my childhood toy. It was a plastic elephant that did
acrobats and it's with me every single day.
Speaker 2: That's great, that's great. I've got some of my childhood
toys around in here too.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 1: That's that's what's great about life, and that's why you
shouldn't throw everything away all the time.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 1: Don't you think that with the books that you have,
Because I talk with more authors that are doing YA
books as well as regular adult novels, and they always
talk about those first books such as this one for
you guys, for young for kids basically that they always
go back to that moment, that book, and that's the
reason why they write today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people, particularly my other books are
more for eight to twelve, and that ten year old
slot is where a lot of people's writing and love
of books get started. I unfortunately, was in school when
we had something called SRA, which was kyl color coded essays.
We didn't read books. But thank goodness, the local drug
store had a comic book rack and on that comic
book rack where there's a copy of Mad Magazine. And
I started reading Mad Magazine when I was like nine
years old, and bought my own subscription when I was dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as Chris always says, the more something spun, the
more it gets done. So we're hoping that kids laugh
and laugh and laugh and love these books and it
makes them want to read more books. When I was younger,
a library and was very smart and picked up on
the fact that I loved cats, and so at a
very young age, she handed me this book and said, here,
I think you're going to like this, and it was
all about cats.
Speaker 2: Well that was it.
Speaker 3: I started reading everything I could get about cats, and
it taught me how to read.
Speaker 1: From one writer to another writer And those that are
listening that do write, but they hide everything that they
write underneath their bed. So what is your writing discipline.
Are you a morning person? Are you guys do it
in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: I'm a mourning person, mostly because I spent almost twenty
years writing radio and television commercials at a big ad agency,
and the only time you could ever get to write
was between the hours of like seven am and then
eleven am. By that time, the client had woken up,
the account executives had woken up, and they started calling up,
and you wanted to have meetings and tell you about
this problem and that problem. So to get that creativies,
I always tell kids I like to write early in
the morning. When you're writing, it's kind of like you're
dreaming while you're half awake, and in the morning, my brain,
my subconscious is still able to talk to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just the opposite from the musical theater background.
My job would start at eight pm, so I'm up
on a night owl. And that's when I get creative,
is at night. So sometimes we have to meet in
the middle of the day and exchange notes.
Speaker 2: Why it's like about four o'clock, I'm done.
Speaker 1: Not everybody is blessed with such a relationship as you, guys,
Because I mean I I my wife, We've been married
for thirty two years, but it took me many years
in order to get to that relationship where she understands
my weirdness and creativity.
Speaker 2: Well we got we started going pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we both lene, we were pretty weird and.
Speaker 2: We've got twenty four years together. Wow. Well I college
one okay, I college Okay, your past twenty threes around
twenty okay.
Speaker 1: See, that would be a fun little project for the
two of you to write a kid's book for adults
who are married. How do we get up to twenty
three twenty four years?
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a fun idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the secrets, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Especially with all of your characters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, that's funny.
Speaker 2: I like that whittle your marriage more people.
Speaker 1: Would you say that what you are doing is bringing
you know, we're going to go back to the early
roots of radio. You're doing the early years of radio
in book form as well as podcasting form with story telling.
Speaker 2: I think so yeah, with stinky stories, especially since it's
so character and voice driven. That's why when people talk
about is an audiobook a book?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: In fact, audio books and storytelling on podcasts and radio
are probably closer to how stories were first told around
the old campfire when you had a saber tooth tiger
story to tell everybody and somehow you escape death that tape.
So I think it gets back to humans love stories.
One of my writer friends, Lee Child says that stories
were created as a tool as a way to deal
with fear and that sort of thing, and so, yeah,
I guess we're keeping that traditional line.
Speaker 1: Wow, I just realized the picture you guys were talking about,
because it's right here on the screen with where you're
wondering if it was a disc jockey. That's actually me
in nineteen seventy seven in my bedroom.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you started early.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right over yeah, right over my shoulder is a poster
of evilk and Eevil and Peter Frampi Come Alive.
Speaker 2: I saw Peter Frffan because I was a just jockey
nineteen seventy five to seventy seven and I played that
Peter frampin Comes Alive.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you,
guys and become a part of your journey because I'm
so inspired by you.
Speaker 2: Well, the first place to go is that Chris Grappenstein
dot com. How do you spell that? Grabbing stein? G R.
Diaz and boy E N S T E I M
dot com and there you'll see links to stinky stories
and some background information. We're going to put up a
little behind the scenes video of us doing the audio
book together, so that will be fun. And then from
there there's links where.
Speaker 1: You can go to wherever you want to buy your
bucks with as much as you're attached to social media
and reaching out to people, are going to see this
in action form? In other words, are we going to
see animation?
Speaker 2: Uh, that's never up to us. Hopefully some producer somewhere
in Hollywood will come across the book. I had one
of my books, Escape from Mister Lemontell's Library, was turned
into a movie on Nickelodeon. And that's how that journey starts.
As some producers seas it on a bookshelf, reads it,
their kids love it, and then they took five six
years for that movie to go from I like this
book to it actually being on Nickelodeon. So, Hollywood, well,
if you Chris Grap's.
Speaker 1: Dyne, if you ever make it to Charlotte to a bookstore,
we've got to get together for some Southern coffee and
just get together and just have a face to face.
Speaker 2: That would be great. I grew up in Tennessee, so
I know North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Yes you do. Will you guys be brilliant today? Okay
you too. You can get away with saying that, can't you.
Speaker 2: These are stinky good books, I guys,