Hi everyone! Look, it’s a new episode of Death Of 1000 Cuts, up on time! WOW. Pretty bananas, eh readers?

Hope you like the show. If you do, please do share it. You might also like my novel, The Honours? If you’d like to submit for a future episode, please read our submission guidelines.

Here’s the extract I look at this week:

Bookbinder (by Catherine)

Once upon a time, we had tonnes of magic. We had magicians who made it good and not wild. But the Queen died and took loads of magic with her and the King died and took more magic.

I squinted at the handwriting of my eight-year-old self.

So the magicians died. And some dragons died. Magic got scary and got into books and paintings and statues and gardens and stuff and made them alive. Billagoes took over places without dragons to eat them. With no people to use magic we had to get people to bind it. The people who bind the magic in books are librarians. The best were called Bookbinders and the best Bookbinder who ever lived was—

‘What are you reading?’ Meryl took the tatty pieces of sewn together construction paper.

I looked up and smiled at her. ‘Old school project of mine. Mum found one of the dogs carrying it around and sent it over. She thought we’d be amused.’

‘Magic and my Great-great-granddad, by Elsinore Bookbinder,’ she read off the cover. ‘Nice choice of crayon.’ She handed the little book back to me. ‘While the subject of your ancestor is currently on the table, have you considered where you might follow in his travelling footsteps?’

‘Nope.’ I swivelled my chair towards my desk.

‘Elsie.’

‘Meryl.’

‘You can’t avoid the Librarian loan programme forever. Your deadline to choose your own destination is in two months.’ She used her stern pay-attention voice.