MK LitFest Moderator Training event at Walton Hall

The Open University collaborated with Milton Keynes Literary Festival to train OU staff, students and MK Lit Fest volunteers to chair conversations with authors ahead of our joint events series, Free Speech and the Politics of Literature.  

This was the second year that MKLitFest and the Open University had held a training day on chairing interviews and panels. This session built on the skills and techniques previously covered, details of which are available here: It’s not about you! Top tips for chairing literary events.

The training was again led by Julia Wheeler, a writer, journalist and interviewer who worked for the BBC for more than fifteen years. Julia chairs discussions at festivals across the UK as well as in the Middle East and North America. She has moderated events at The British Library, The Royal Geographical Society and onboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2.

The training session, on a wet day in February, began with some much needed caffeine and the tech set-up of microphones and recording equipment – a familiar precursor to all the best literary events. Don’t skimp on this. Allow time to get it right and agree who takes responsibility for it.

Dream Interviews

Imagine you could interview any author, living or dead. Who would you choose? What would you ask them? What would you ask Donna Tartt? Johnathan Swift? Margaret Atwood? Sappho? Dickens? Hilary Mantel? Bernardine Evaristo? Samuel Becket? Benjamin Zephaniah?

But more prosaically, how would you structure the interview?

Beginnings, Middles and Ends

Two things to consider from the outset are your author(s) and your audience. Will the audience be familiar with the works you are discussing? Do they need a brief introduction? Why has the writer agreed to be interviewed – what is their agenda? It may for instance be to promote a new publication. You need to take control of the situation in ‘a delightfully bossy way’. Put your author at their ease, make them feel welcome, be sure to make them the star of the show. Put your audience at their ease too, let them know that they are in safe hands, they can sit back and enjoy the ride.

A first question to ask your author should be an easy one, something that allows them to talk for a while, perhaps establishing background or context, something they are comfortable talking about, something that gets the conversation flowing. Listen to what they say! You are aiming for an organic conversation rather than a stilted series of questions and answers.

Somewhere in the middle of the interview, ideally having established a rapport with your author, you will want to ask your killer question. This is the question that goes a little deeper, the one that perhaps asks your author to discuss something controversial, the one that has your audience leaning forward in their seats. Keep the wording of your killer question simple; don’t overcomplicate it.

Towards the end of the interview, don’t take risks. Come back to something the author mentioned earlier, or to the book they are promoting, or perhaps to something that connects the audience to the book. End on a feel-good note.

Handling the Q&A

Let your audience know that you invite succinctly worded questions, be prepared to interrupt the questioner with ‘I’m just going to stop you there’ if they are waffling. Be prepared to restate the questions to improve clarity. Consider having a ‘plant’ in the audience – someone who can be relied on to ask a good question. Don’t say ‘we’ve got time for just one more question’ in case that next question turns out to be a dud. And finally, keep one last question of your own back. Julia calls this her ‘break glass in case of emergency question’.

Mapping the Interview Arc

Ahead of the event, the well-prepared chair or moderator will have done their homework. They will have read the book(s) being discussed, be familiar with the author’s back catalogue, studied reviews, and followed the author(s) on social media. They will have formulated a list of questions to ask.

But because you are ideally aiming for a wonderfully organic conversation, something sparky and honest, a list of questions might be restrictive and just a little dull.

Consider instead a route map. Plan where you think the conversation might go, but be prepared to be flexible, to deviate and take the most interesting path – whilst still arriving at your desired destination. You might distil all your research into a mind map of topics and themes. This will allow you to formulate the questions on the spur of the moment so that they sound fresh. It will help you to steer the conversation while taking advantage of the opportunities and openings as they naturally occur. With a map, whichever way the conversation flows, you will be prepared for the transitions from topic to topic and have new ones to introduce as necessary.

This will of course require close listening. It will require you to trust your preparation and your own curiosity. But you have your map. Keep a clock in view, so that you know when to take a detour and when you need a shortcut to arrive on time.

Productive Discomfort

Ahead of the forthcoming Free Speech and the Politics of Literature events, this training session addressed how to handle conversations around difficult subjects such as contentious opinions, offence, censorship and cancel culture.

There are no fool-proof guidelines for this area. You might prepare by consulting any directives provided by your organisation or the event’s host organisation. (The OU, for instance provides the following code of practice on free speech.) Read around the divisive issue, familiarise yourself with the argument and, importantly, with the counter-argument. Be clear in your own mind about the scope and limits of free speech. Principles of free speech include the right to give offense, but not hate speech or incitement. Park your personal opinion. Your job is to ask the questions and to keep the conversation productive even in the discomfort zone. But however much you have prepared, ultimately, you will have to trust your instincts.

Should you ask the difficult question? Yes. For one thing, total agreement makes for a dull conversation. And for another, if your author has contentious views or has recently been embroiled in some controversy, if you don’t ask about it, someone in the audience will. Keep the wording and the tone of the question within your control.

How should you frame difficult questions? Ideally, keep the question grounded in something that the author has written. Keep the tone neutral – don’t allow too much heat. This gives your author the best opportunity to answer calmly. They have been invited to express their opinions, they have the right to express their opinions, and it is their opinions your audience have come to hear.

What if the difficult question does come from the audience? If, in your view, it is unacceptably offensive, say so, and move on to the next question. (Online, this is easier to handle, just don’t read it out). If it is a challenging question, you might ask your interviewee if they are comfortable answering or would prefer not to – you have a duty of care towards them as your guest.

What to do if things get uncomfortable? Try to give differing opinions equal ‘airtime’. Try to give everyone ‘the right of reply’. Try to steer the conversation back to being productive. Your goal is to achieve an exchange of views and to disagree agreeably.

And Finally …

If you make a mistake, or your author misconstrues a question, don’t fixate on it. Move on, maybe come back to that point later to clarify. Julia’s last piece of advice is to ask yourself beforehand, (at least a couple of days beforehand!) what is your biggest fear? What is the worst that could happen? then work out how you would handle it. And if on the day, something does go wrong, just calmly, pragmatically fix it or work around it. Improvisation is always part of the plan at a live event.

Image credit: Flora Rees/ MK LitFest