JEFF KINNEY 'WE CAN'T FORCE KIDS TO READ!'

The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid author can't wait to bring his interactive show here

- JEFF KINNEY

You're coming to our shores for the Sydney Writers' Festival next month. Tell us, what can we expect?

Yeah, so we're doing a full stage show called The Hot Mess Show. It's a different kind of experience, different from an author talk. It's a really interactive experience, it's funny, it's got music, action, some surprises, some big laughs. The conceit of the show is that I've decided to get out of the book writing racket and I'm going to open a restaurant. So I need to hire staffers, waiters, maitre ds, chefs and hype people to get the word out. So we bring kids up onto the stage, we bring their parents up, and we put them into some friendly competitions. It's fun. We have a lot of pranks on stage. I'm really looking forward to taking it to Australia and trying something really new.