Special Guests: General Fiction

Grace Dent on Twitter and Being Queen of the Universe

Grace Dent is quite remarkable. A girl from a working class background who didn’t have the benefits of a polished, connected upbringing, and who is eternally grateful to Scotland and Stirling University for providing her with an education, she has conquered every area of the media. From newspapers (The Guardian) to magazines (Marie Claire), radio, and some of the most popular shows on TV including The Culture Show, Charlie Brooker's  Screenwipe,  and The Apprentice: You’re Hired, she has also written eleven bestselling novels which have been translated into twelve languages – and her Diary of A Snob novels were acquired for TV development by Nickelodeon in March 2011.

Originally from Carlisle, now living in London, Dent is bright, sassy and has a warm no-nonsense approach to life that is funny, refreshing and has won her thousands of fans, most recently on the social network Twitter. Her new book, and first non-fiction How to Leave Twitter (My Time as Queen of the Universe ) charts her journey from her first tweet, ‘looking puzzled at twitter’ to having over 89,000 followers (at the last count, and no doubt more by the time you read this!)

When we met during her flying visit to Dublin, I asked her how it all started.  She revealed “I always wanted to get out of Carlisle. I loved reading, read loads of books and magazines. But I had a terror of getting a real job after Uni.  I looked at Paula Yates and Julie Birchill and always knew there had to be a job out there for someone who had a funny turn of phrase; the problem was I knew I was never going to pick up the Guardian and find an advert for someone who was funny with bad spelling.”

Read more: Grace Dent on Twitter and Being Queen of the Universe