Gill

It's the big one.

It's the last one in the trilogy with Gill Publishing.

The one that follows Listen to the Land Speak and 32 Words for Field.

So it's kind of a bigger, significant one.

I really had no sense of it, whether it was workable as a book.

And I sent it to Gill Books' Teresa Daly, who I'd worked with before, and she came back and made me an offer.

And, uh, I was absolutely thrilled with that because suddenly I thought, "Well, do you know what? You haven't been wasting your time." 'Cause I was really doing it just to put structure in my days and, and to avoid that trap of being mentally lazy.

Interesting.

Right.

Very lucky, and it's, it's a joy to be back in here talking to you, and, uh, I, I feel totally blessed.

I feel a privilege that someone thought it would be worth me doing a book about me as distinct from sp- sports stars, and, uh, I'm really, really pleased with what Gill have done with it.

And, uh-

It's called Through the Long Grass.

It's published by Gill Books.

Owen Warner, good morning to you.

Good morning.

Self-published, is it?

No, it's through Gill Books, yeah.

Oh, right, okay.

Yeah.

And it came out last week.

It's with Gill Books.

And yeah, it's a little story.

Briefly, it's a little story about that dog that you see when you go to newsagents and it's tied to the pole, sad, waiting on its owner.

when the publisher came to you then what did you think We

were, I remember, I think I probably, I think it was an editor from Gill Books and he, I had worked with him briefly in a journalism context and he, I think, emailed me out of the blue and was like, look, I'm working in publishing now.

I think this character is great.

Would you ever think of doing something? And I would have immediately forwarded that on to Sarah going, oh my God.

We wanted to try and write something bigger than that.

And we said, let's see if they'll let us write like a full novel, like a story.

And Gill don't traditionally publish fiction.

They do children's books.