Hello, and welcome to my new blog for Litro.  I’ll be posting here every Friday, so check back then for all the latest.

I’ll begin by introducing myself and talking about what sort of things you can expect to find here in the coming weeks.  I’m the author of The Girl with Glass Feet, which you can check out at my website here.  I keep a blog there too, which is proving to be a ramshackle affair covering whatever I’m currently finding interesting, magical or moving.  I want to keep the two blogs distinct, so here I’ll mostly stick to what Litro’s all about: writing.  I’m going to talk about the world of books and the worlds in books, and the strange goings on therein. 

When it comes to reading, I’m a real magpie.  I like short stories, novels, poetry, comic books, dusty old second hand books about weird subjects that I have no knowledge of, children’s books, the lot.  I know a little about a lot of things and am left an expert in nothing.  I’m bad at keeping just one book on the go at once, and I am prone to the sin, in many people’s eyes, of giving up on books I don’t enjoy.  Life’s too unbearably short, and there is a lot out there to read.

At the moment I’m obsessed with fairy stories and folklore.  I’m sure I’ll end up talking more about that further down the line.  And having said I’m going to keep this about books, I’m really intrigued by the way stories spread across culture, so if it’s relevant I might find ways to shoehorn comments about records, stop-motion films, countryside museums and so on into this blog.

I hope it’ll make for an interesting read…

Ali

… but wait, you say, what can we expect of Litro’s new blog and events section? How silly of me. Let me explain: I have no idea. Well, okay, some idea. When first meeting with Ocean Media publisher Eric Akoto to discuss the new role, he explained that Litro was looking for a sort of literary girl about town. ‘Like Holly Golightly!’ I exclaimed to a friend the next day. ‘Julie, my dear,’ she replied, ‘you do remember that Holly Golightly was an escort?’ Indeed! So let’s make that analogy a bit, erm, looser.

As literary girl about town, I’ll be popping into book launches and author readings, reviewing whatever new books I can get my hands on, and exploring art exhibits and other events that blur the lines between literature and other media. Expect brief round-ups here on the blog along with previews of artists and events that we just have to call your attention to immediately as well as pedantic asides where our inner grammar fiends are let loose and snarling (yes, yes, I am on a failing one-woman mission to eradicate the LOL). Meanwhile, the back pages of each Litro issue will likely be reserved for more in-depth reviews, features, and interviews.

Which reminds me: during those initial sessions in which your Litro staff laid out plans for the future of Litro’s event coverage (the phrase “take over the universe” may or may not have been used), our fearless publisher mentioned author interviews as an arena into which we might expand our coverage. For example, he said, Salman Rushdie has a new book out and it made the Booker longlist. So you might interview him. Right. So I would just, you know … interview … Salman … Rushdie. Would your confidence in your events editor be shaken were she to admit that the first thought that came to mind when picturing that scenario was of the cringe-inducing book launch scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary (‘Lord Archer, yours aren’t bad either.’)?

Surely Litro could do better. Salman? (Salman’s publicists?) Phone us.