Rhi Axtell – Writer

‘You can have anything you want, except video games’ – this was the rule when I asked for presents growing up.

Not that I didn’t get video games, mind you. It just required a delicate manipulation of my father until he wanted the game as much as I did and bought it. I’m still particularly proud of convincing my dad to buy a PlayStation 2 because ‘they play DVDs AS WELL as games’ (which were a brand new technology at the time). In his eyes, we were saving money because we didn’t need to buy a DVD player as well. Bargain!

Perhaps it is because of this extra step to find ‘play’ (in this form at least – I still had plenty of other toys and a big sister who I could play with) that play is so important to me.

In fact, now that I think about it, ‘play’ was one of the main reasons I was drawn to being a children’s writer. I got to be playful and silly with words in a way that made me and my potential readers laugh. If I dig a little deeper, and consider that my first children’s trilogy is mainly set inside a video game, I wonder if the impact of this spreads a lot further than I initially thought.

Either way, I love to play. Whether it be video games, board games, or being silly with my friends in a TTRPG, I think it’s really important to my process as a creative.

That’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking to it.