with Teresa Stenson. 90s teenage diaries (ft. Take That).
First broadcast 22 April 2025.
Teresa Stenson is a writer and zine-maker based in York. She’s the creator of My 90s Teenage Diaries, an online project in which she revisits her old diaries and shares extracts alongside present-day thoughts and reflections. She’s also a published short story writer, with work placed in several literary prizes and anthologies, including the Guardian’s Summer Reads contest.
My 90s Teenage diaries is a work-in-progress, and in this interview with Teresa we talk about the emotional and practical challenges of keeping it going. Teresa also shares two diary extracts - one is a letter that her teenage-self wrote to her future husband, and the second is a list of flirting tips (which it goes without saying are all excellent).
Towards the end of this episode, Teresa also tells me about her day job as a freelance ghost writer and editor, helping her clients all over the world to tell their own stories. And, not dissimilarly from from the process of ghost writing, Teresa describes the comedy persona that she created sometime in the mid noughties – an alter ego called Bella De La Rocher. By coincidence, Bella has actually published an unfinished novel (which doesn’t stop her imagining the kind of press releases she might need when the great acclaim she anticipates comes rushing in). Teresa continues, sporadically, to share Bella’s creative works and her inner world online, though sometimes that's just photos of potatoes.
Links of interest
My 90s Teenage Diaries: https://teenagediaries.substack.com/
Teresa’s zines are here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TeresaWrites?ref=profile_header
Teresa’s Insta: @Teresa.Stenson
Most of a Novel by Bella De La Rocher: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Novel-Bella-Rocher-ebook/dp/B07XLP7RB6?ref_=ast_author_dp
Bella’s insta: @BellaDeLaRocher