Aims:
To have fun, snog boys and go to Astlebury Music Festival.

Achievements:
* Not killing their parents when banned from going to said festival.
* Persuading their terminally miserable headteacher, Mr McGraw, aka ‘Prozac Mac’, to let them organize their own music festival.
* Not letting their brains turn to mush when they meet good-looking lads - well, Fleur’s still working on that one.

Loves:
Music, the other LBDs and the gorgeous Jimi Steele from Year 11.

Most embarrassing moment:
It's hard to pick one - you’ve met their parents - right?

An Interview with Grace Dent, author of LBD: It’s a Girl Thing

Inside your extrovert columnist persona, has there always been a novelist trying to burst out?
I've been writing for magazines and newspapers for years, but deep down, I always wanted to write novels. This was for a few main reasons a) In books you can blether on for far longer than in a magazine piece, b) I could hide away at home and wear my pyjamas more and c) I imagined that once you signed a book deal, the publisher came round with a big truck of money. Sadly, I'm still waiting for that truck, but I have splashed out on some ace new pyjamas. Pink with stripes. Lovely.

Did your family encourage you in your writing career?
Even today my dad still encourages me to get a 'proper job' like as an air hostess or a bank cashier.  He called me last October when I was putting the finishing touches to LBD:It's A Girl Thing and asked me what I was up to. I said 'Ooh I'm exhausted Dad, I'm just finishing my book.'  He said, 'Oh really love, why what are you reading?'   Yes, he thought I meant I was lying on the sofa reading a novel. I said, with a withering tone, 'No Dad, I'm writing my book. I've got a book deal with Puffin books? I'm being published in the USA and seven other European countries!!' 

When you heard that Puffin wanted to publish LBD, how did you feel?
When I heard LBD was being published, I hadn't actually written it. I'd only managed a few thousand words but they liked it so much they asked me to sign up to write three books.  Actually getting a book deal wasn't as much fun as I always fantasised it would be, I just felt a bit scared and overwhelmed.  Things became much more fun when all the fuss died down and I could get down to writing. That's when you feel totally free. That's when you can get up late, potter about and do a bit of making stuff up for a living.

Writers, working by themselves at home can get away with the most disgusting personal habits.  What is your really worst one?
Leaving old coffee cups, half drank glasses of orange and snottery tissues everywhere is pretty grim. However, I think the most disgusting thing being an author makes me is totally anti-social.  Friends call my flat 'The Putney Bunker' as I hide away in it and won't answer my phone as I'm having far too much fun with The LBD inside my head.

Dish the dirt on LBD!  Are Ronnie, Claude and Fleur based on real characters that you know or knew at school?
I think most people who know me and have read  LBD reckon Ronnie is very much like me - in the way she speaks and her outlook on life.  I tend to natter on in a daft way and have mad ideas. I also put myself down a bit and worm my way out of difficult situations with silly one-liners. When I was Ronnie's age I was equally obsessed with boys and music so I find it very easy to write as her.

Fleur is a culmination of all of my tall beautiful female friends. I'm only 5 foot 4 with brown hair, so when I was growing up I quickly realised how you can become quite literally invisible whilst kicking about with your tall blonde mate. I have lots of fun making her so delightfully self-centred and vain. It can be tricky treading that thin line, keeping Fleur likeable as I always want to push her that little bit further and turn her into a complete nightmare.

Claudette is the voice-of-reason in the LBD, she's very loosely based on two different girls I've been friends with whose family were from Ghana, although they were British by birth. I liked their juxtaposition of extreme naughtiness, with a proper, traditional, religious upbringing. It always made me crack up. No matter how outrageously naughty Claudette is, she'll still be up at 8am the next day to do her Uncle Bert's shopping.

I still knock about in London with two girls that I was friends with since I was a little girl in Carlisle, so I suppose I'm proof that gangs like the LBD can last for years. 

What kind of a teenager were you?
Oh dear, I was a nightmare teenager. That's why I dedicated The LBD to my mum, to say sorry. We get along brilliantly nowadays, mum and I. We speak on the phone every day and have a great laugh together, but it wasn't always like this. When I was a teenager, I drove her absolutely to her wits end.  I had a little gang of odd-looking mates who'd hang about together being as depressed as possible and playing loud music. Of course, there was also a procession of weird boyfriends with shaved eyebrows, piercings and tattoos arriving at the house to take me out.  My mother loathed every single one, without exception.

It's taken us ten years to see the funny side.  By the way- if you have read The LBD and can remember the part about Fleur's phonebill and the 'Special sunshine Holiday to Martinique'- that really did happen in my house. Sorry mum.

If you were a teenager again, what would you do differently?
Stuff I have learned: Don't pierce your own ears as they go all gammy. Hair dye never looks the same in real life as it does on the box. Try to lighten up a bit about life's traumas- eg: considering killing yourself over not being having a new skirt for the school disco may be being 'a little bit over dramatic'. Oh and also, when you're putting your make-up on, either do 'lots of eye makeup' or 'lots of lipstick'- yes, that's one or the other. Not both at the same time or it will look like a halloween mask.

What is your favourite television programme?
I've got a bit of a secret obsession with Friends. People who I've shared houses with say that during Friends is the only time they see me sit down and relax. That's a bit sad isn't it? I don't care though, I think everyone deserves the right to do sad things that make them feel good. I watch Friends, religiously, every day at 5pm on E4 with a cup of tea, quietly thanking the lord that I have a book deal and can do cool stuff like that.

What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you?
I get letters from girls and boys who say they've read my stuff in newspapers, like my soap column in The Guardian, and say that they'd love one day to be 'just like me'. That's really nice. I find it really overwhelming that anybody could consider me a role-model. It reminds me that I worked really hard and achieved something pretty big. 

Do you still go to music festivals?
My bloke works in the music industry, so we go to a loads of gigs and festivals. We get backstage passes and get to hang out with the bands. I still love going to Festivals - but only as long as there is a nearby hotel for me to get a shower in at the end of the day. I've done with being covered in mud and queuing for the chemical toilets now. The second LBD novel, out next year, is all about the girls, loud music and lads again so I'll be going to all of the festivals to do some valuable research...I think it's going to be a great summer.

Reviewer: Reisha