As this year’s Quick Reads scheme launches on World Book Night, Ann Chadwick looks at the benefits of accessible writing for writers as well as readers

Being able to write clearly and accessibly is essential for writers who want their work to be widely read and understood. That’s a given. But it can also be the key to transforming people’s lives.

Can accessible writing really do that? ‘All the time!’ Cathy Rentzenbrink says.

Before she became a Sunday Times bestselling author, Cathy helped her illiterate father to read, which led her to the role of project director of The Reading Agency’s Quick Reads scheme.

Each year, The Reading Agency commissions six Quick Reads: short, accessible, entertaining, and affordable books (retailing at £1) from bestselling authors, with the ambition to get people who struggle with reading to pick up a page turner, as well as entice lapsed readers back into the habit.

During her time at Quick Reads, Cathy saw their transformative power: ‘There was one woman who said, I never thought I’d be able to be in this world but now I go to the book club at the library and I discuss books like I was born to it. I thought that was such a powerful concept, whether or not you’re born into something.’

Today, Cathy is one of six Quick Read authors with titles published this April for World Book Night.

‘My dad was born into poverty, truanting from school, with nobody looking after him. I was born into a happy house, where I was looked after, and I always felt reading was mine. I think that’s what I wanted to give to people who hadn’t been born to it. I wanted to say, you can feel like you’re born to it, it is for you, and that’s what I’ve always wanted and how I feel generally with books, I always want to say: come on in, the water’s lovely!’