Hi there,

In response to your questions to the story behind Georgia Nicholson, here's a bit on how it began:

I used to live in Notting Hill, London (it wasn't so posh, then), and I wrote and performed a one-woman show called Stevie Wonder Touched My Face about living in Notting Hill Gate and what it was like being a girl. Growing up. It started off when I was little, and at home, and then in London. It was a really big hit in England. I toured with it all over for about four years. It was even on television. As a consequence of the play, I got lots of radio work and offered lots of things.

And one of the things that I did was to write for a London newspaper. I used to write articles on just everything I liked really. It was quite good fun. I wrote an article called "Dating Over 35" and how pointless it is, because if you’re on your own after thirty-five, that’s because there is something wrong with you.

Anyways, I got a call from Picadilly Press and they said, "We loved your article, it was so funny, would you like to write a book?" And I thought, "Ooh, how sophisticated!" And she said, "No, no, no, we’d like you to write a teenage girl’s diary." And I said, "Oh, I’m quite flattered, but why me?" And she said, "Well, we read your article and we thought that it was so self-obsessed and so childish that you could really do a good job."

And they really did just let me write it; they didn’t interfere, and I could just write it and write it as it came. The main character Georgia is really based on my experiences of when I was fourteen. I wrote the book to make myself laugh. I always wrote what I remembered making me laugh when I was that age. I didn't attempt to teach. I didn't attempt to do anything except I wanted Georgia to be a decent person. I wanted her to be someone who is a bit stupid and self-obsessed and difficult and funny and rude, and a bit jealous and all those other things. But I wanted her to have a good heart.

I had a boy say to me about Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging, "I really wished I would have read this book years ago, because then I would have realized how mad girls were. I wouldn't have wasted all this time thinking they were normal."

Louise

Louise Rennison lives in Brighton, the San Francisco of England (apart from the sun, Americans, the Golden Gate Bridge, and earthquakes).