As one of Australia’s leading voice-over actors and the voice of countless TV and radio campaigns, Stephen Briggs is heard in millions of Australian homes every day. He has lent his vocal talent to some of the biggest stars in the world including Stevie Wonder, Pink, Jennifer Lopez, Usher and U2 to name a few. However, you’d have no idea who he is – until now!
Stephen Briggs emerges from behind the microphone to put pen to paper with the release of his debut memoir, The boy who could tickle clouds. Opening on the edge of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert, five-year-old Stephen discovers he is cursed with two of the most malicious maladies known to mankind. He is a “choker” who wears his shorts too high and he is sensitive.
The first curse he deals with relatively easily by pulling his shorts down to his knees. The second however is never far from the surface but he learns to endure it with the help of Kimba the white guinea pig, the scorching red Pilbara desert and his wonderful dad Gerry.
Stephen has been a storyteller since the age of five. While on holiday in his native Yorkshire, his family stuck him on a chair, poked him with a stick and demanded he talk, just to hear his strange, mixed-up Australian/English accent. Sadly for those close to him, Stephen hasn’t stopped talking since.
He discovered he was a performer a few months later when he streaked through one of his mother’s tea parties wearing nothing but her oversized platform shoes and a miniature cape, shrieking, “Someone’s let the snake out. Run for your life!”
The boy who could tickle clouds is a joyous, hilarious and heart-warming story that will transport readers to a simpler time when Sundays meant watching Countdown, Atari was state-of-the-art technology, nobody locked the front door, car keys were left in the ignition and a special occasion demanded Old Spice Soap-on-a-Rope, fondue and a cask of Fruity Lexia.
Stephen’s moving and deeply personal memoir about growing up in the isolated West Australian mining town of Paraburdoo in the 1970s, attending a prestigious Perth boarding school in the 1980s and then living in inner-city Perth throughout the ‘90s, tells of one boy’s magical journey to find himself and his place in the world.
If you liked The Catcher in the Rye and The Year My Voice Broke, then you’ll love The boy who could tickle clouds.
The boy who could tickle clouds is available online as an e-book via iTunes and Amazon, or in paperback at all leading book retailers. For more information about Stephen, visit: www.stephenbriggs.net for details.